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LETTERS 



TO 



CARDINAL McCLOSKEY, 

ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. 



REV. JAMES A. O'CONNOR, 

FOR MANY YEARS A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST ; NOW PASTOR OF 
THE REFORMED CATHOLIC CHURCH, NEW YORK. 



FOURTH EDITION. 

TENTH TfTOTTSA Nn. 



Revised and Ewj 



;ifir;/(;£P£?'T. 



LIBRARY^ 



NEW YORK : 

**THE CONVERTED CATHOLIC" Publishing Office, 

60 Bible House. 

1884. 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



Tlie Letters contained in tliis volume have at- 
tained a popularit}^ little dreamed of by theii 
author when he began their publication in a 
religious newspaper. TJie matter contained in 
them was prepai ed from .week to week for sermons 
and lectures in the line of his duty as pastor of the 
Reformed Catholic Church ; and it was throvvu 
together in this popular form for the purpose of 
teaching those for whom they were chiefly de- 
signed — the Roman Catholics, They have had a 
wide circulation, and have done much good to 
Protestants and Roman Catholics, in breaking 
down the walls of prejudice, bigotry and super- 
stition. Many Roman Catholics have been en- 
lightened by them regarding the deceptions of the 
Church of Rome, and have found the true way of 
salvation by faith in Christ, as it is pointed out 
in them in various places ; while many Protest- 
ants have had their hearts warmed by the tone 
of kindness and love for the poor victims of 
Rome's delusions that runs through them. If 
the questions at issue between the Word of God 
and the Church of Rome can be discussed in a 
friendly manner, and Protestants and Roman 
Catholics can be induced to ''argue" them in 
a neighborly and Christian way, the truth of 
Ood will prevail and the downfall of Rome is 
assured. As a help toward this desirable end 
this volume has done its part in the past, and it 
is hoped will do yet more in the future. May 
Almighty Cod bless this and every eflbrt that 
seeks only his glory and the salvation of souls, 
through Jesus Clirist our Lord. Amen. 

J. A. O'C. 

''Converted Catholic" Office, 

No. 60 Bible House, New York, February, 1884. 

By Transf Of 
' P.O. Dept. 

Mar 9,3 o 



jfp^INTRODUCTION. 



The letters of the Rev. James A. O'Connor to Cardinal 
McCloskey, which are brought together in this volume, 
appeared serially in the JVew York Weekly WiinesSy and 
were, I have reason to believe, perused with deep interest 
by a large class of its readers ; as also by many Roman 
Catholic priests and laymen to wliom the papers were 
lent or sent by a number of subscribers to the Witness. 

I may add that I read with pleasure these instructive 
letters, as they appeared, and hope that they will enlighten 
many readers in the future as they have done in the past 
on the questions at issue between the Church of Rome 
and the Bibk^ 

JOHN DOUGALL, 

Editor *' New York Weekly Wltc ■•.*• 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 3 

Letter 

I. — Roman Catholic discontent 5 

II. — Introduces the Author 8 

III. — Power and Luxury of the Roman Church 12 

IV. — Roman Catholic Schools. A Bishop's Oath. ... 17 
V. — Celibacy of the Roman Catholic Priesthood. ... 21 

VI. — Same subject continued 27 

VII.— Life in Convents 33 

VIII.— The Pope as a Banker 38 

IX. — Romanism and Mormonism 44 

X. — No Priest, no Sacrament; No Sacrament, no 

Salvation 50 

Xr. — Priests opposing Popery now as in the past. . . . 06 

XII.— The Virgin Mary 64 

XIII. — The Scriptural way of Salvation and the Ro- 
man way 72 

XIV. — Preparation for Confession by examination of 

Conscience 79 

XV. — How Confession is made to a Priest 8() 

XVI. — The Secrets of the Confessional. *^ Moral 

Theology" 95 

XVIL — ^'Leaving^Father and Mother for My sake".. . . 100 
XVIII. — The Mass wine, and dissipation among Priests. 107 

XIX. — Zeal for the Conversion of Catholics Ill 

XX. — The '^Sacrifice" of the Mass. Christ one only 

Sacrifice , 118 

XXI. — Tran substantiation. A mouse eats the Host. . . 12G 
XXII. — Purgatory, a place like Hell, and also a Re- 
frigerator 1 34 

XXIII. — Heaven without Purgatory 146 

XXIV.— St. Patrick and Ireland 150 

XXV. — Infallibility of the Pope in the case of Henry 

VIII 165 

XXVI. — Salvation for Roman Catholics. Father Mc- 
Guire's Soul in Purgatory. A Romish paper's 

acknowledgment 173 

XXVII. — Cardinal McCloskey's Golden Jubilee. Growth 
of the Roman Church. The danger and 
remedy. Statistics 180 



FATHER O'CONNOR'S 



LETTERS TO 



CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 



Letter I. 



Sir: — I address you in a reasonable and respeci- 
ful manner, to call your attention to some matters 
of tlie deepest importance to all who believe in 
God and wish to serve him. You are the head in 
this country of an organization that claims to be 
the only true Church of Christ. There are other 
•religious societies that make the same claim, but 
you say they are heretical, and that yours is the 
only genuine one containing the whole truth. 

Until a few years ago I was an active worker in 
that organization, and exercised to the full capa- 
city the power that some of our population sup- 
X:>ose a priest to possess. You must concede that 
only a small jjroportion of the people of this 
country believe in such power. Yet their numoer 
is so considerable that you andG,()()() other priests 
find it vei'y profitable to humor them in their de- 
lusion. It is known of all nuMi that the class of 

A 



FATnEK O CO>.^OK S LETTKllb 



people that believe in j^ou and your system of re- 
ligion are the least intelligent of the population. 
Here and there throughout the country an educa- 
ted and refined man or woman will be found who 
believes in this system, but they are very few in- 
deed, and they could well dispense with your min- 
istrations. But the common people, the working 
people of the country, need to be uplifted by 
some means from the sinful lives that they are 
leading. You say that you and your Church can 
do it if they will come to you. They have been 
coming to you and your predecessors for centu- 
ries, and why do you not do it? If you possess 
the power of reconciling poor sinners to their of- 
fended Creator, why do you not make good your 
claim by using it with effect ? 

It is the belief among your followers that no 
one can approach the i^.lmighty except through 
the door of the Roman Catholic Church. You 
claim that you and your priests are the divinely 
appointed door-keepers of heaven. Why don't 
you pass in the poor people that come to you ? 

What would be said and done to a man who 
had in his possession a secret remedy by which 
the life of our late President Garfield would have 
been prolonged for many years, and yet who 
would not impart this secret ? The whole civil- 
ized world would rise up as one man and denounce 
such a creature as the most infamous of beings. 
If he claimed to have such a remedy and found 



TO CAKDIKAL MCCLOSKEY. 



many persons to believe in him, and had been 
given an opportnnicy of testing it and yet failed 
to restore our beloved President to health, what 
a cry of indignation would go up from the whole 
land that he was only a quack in medicine. 

My dear Cardinal, so many people have tried 
the remedy for their souls that you say you pos- 
sess v/ithout any benefit to them, that their cry 
that you are a quack in religion is rising very 
high indeed. Your system has had a fair trial 
for many centuries. Honest though sinful hearts 
have come under its sway to be lifted up from the 
wretchedness and misery that sin has brought 
upon them. Young minds have been opened to 
its influence that they may receive light ; men 
and women in the prime of life have asked for 
more strength and help to resist the evil that 
presses around them, and old age, with its totter- 
ing steps, has knocked at the door to obtn;ii rest 
and peace. All have been disappointed, and 
many are now examining your claim to possess a 
remedy for the sins of their souls. I shall be 
their mouth-piece in exposing those claims. 

Very truly yours, 

J^MEs A. O'Connor. 



FATHER O'CONNOn'S LETTEUS 



Letter II. 



Sir: — As we are strangers personally I beg to 
introduce myself. I cannot do so in a more 
concise manner than by submitting for your 
perusal the substance of a lecture I delivered in 
this city soon after I left your Church. It is a re- 
port taken from a religious paper published in 
this city: — 

At a crowded service of the Independent 
Catholic Church in this city, the pastor, the Rev. 
James A. O'Connor, preached from Acts xxvi, 
4, 5, 22, and 23. Applying the text to the sub- 
ject of the discourse, which was, " My life as a 
Roman Catholic priest and my present position," 
he said that for the words Jerusalem and Jews he 
would substitute Ireland and the Irish, and for 
the word Pharisee in the fifth verse he would sub- 
stitute Roman Catholic. These verses well ex- 
pressed his position as a young Irishman and a 
Roman Catholic priest. 

His family and friends were of old Roman 
Catholic stock, and even the strictest of the ad- 
herents of that Church. From his twelfth year 
he v\^as destined for the priesthood by his parents 
as the most exalted position in life. A Roman 
Catholic priest was, as it were, a mediator be- 
tween God and man, and the treasury of heaven 






TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 



could be opened only by the priest for the laity. 
No higher position in this world, therefore, could 
be conceived than that of the priest who is the 
only medium known in that Church for the 
prayers of the people to reach the throne of grace. 
In his family was a venerable priest, the speaker's 
grand-uncle, Father Batt O'Connor, parish priest 
of Milltovvn, County Kerry, The speaker's own 
nephew was recently ordained a Roman Catholic 
missionary priest, and other near relatives, male 
and female, were priests and nuns. Trained up 
amid such sarroiiadings, his manner of life from 
his youth was after the strictest sect of the Ro- 
man Catholic religion. Having made the prepar- 
atory studies in the Diocesan Seminary in Killar- 
ney, the delightful home of his early life, he pro- 
ceeded to France and studied philosophy and 
theology in the great Seminary of St. Sulpice, 
Paris. As a young man he was filled with zeal 
for the salvation of souls, and, as he considered 
there was an abundance of priests in Ireland, he 
resolved to make America the scene of his priest- 
ly labors, as his countrymen were spreading over 
this new land by thousands every j^ear. That he 
might be more thoroughly prepared for his min- 
istry, he spent some time in the seminary of St. 
Francis, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then 
entered St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, which 
is conducted by the same society of priests 
who have charge of the Sulpicinn SiMuinnry in 



10 FATUER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

Paris. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon, 
in the seminary cliapel in Baltimore, in 1871, and 
six months afterwards was ordained priest in 
Chicago, by the late Bishop Foley. He began his 
priestly life in the city of Chicago, and for eiglit 
years he labored in the ministry of the Roman 
Catholic priesthood in that city and other parts 
of Illinois. He faithfully tried to fulfil his duties 
as a i:)riest, offering masses for the people, hear- 
ing confession, attending their sick-calls, minis- 
tering to all their spiritual wants, and taking 
a kindly interest even in their temporal af- 
fairs whenever he, as pastor, could help and bene- 
fit them. Lest, while i)reaching to others, he 
should be a castaway himself, he observed, in his 
own person, all the duties required of a Catholic 
and a priest ; he said his mass every morning, 
went to confession every two weeks, paid daily 
visits to tlie parochial schools, and in every way 
was a live, active, zealous young priest. The ex- 
ample of older priests around him, which was not 
always good, had no effect upon him, and he con- 
tinued for eight years, bravely working for the 
Irish Roman Catholic people, until he found that, 
as regards the moral elevation of his people and 
the influence of Christianity in their lives, his 
labors were in vain. Looking back from his pre- 
sent position, he thanked God that he retained 
his good character and reputation through all his 
ministry. He had seen priests around him be- 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 11 

come intemperate tlirougli sheer recklessness and 
despair. Many of the priests of the Chicago dio- 
cese, while he was among them, were hurried 
into early graves from dissipation brought on by 
the tyranny and despotism of this hideous eccle- 
siastical system: — a system which makes them 
slaves until their hearts are broken, and they 
find what they consider a relief in sensual excess. 
Like many other priests around him, Father 
O'Connor began to see that the Roman Catholic 
Church Avas not all she professed to be. His ob- 
servation led him to see a lack of fruit in his min- 
istry and in that of his brother priests. Tf, he 
asked himself, the Roman Catholic Church was 
the Church Christ established on earth, with 
which he promised to abide forever, why did not 
the people who had such great faith in that 
Church show in their lives more evidence of their 
Christian profession ? As a priest, he was con- 
tinually handling sacred things, and giving them 
to the people who had a full and perfect faith in 
them and in him ; yet he never experienced con- 
version of heart in his own person, nor did he see 
any evidence of it in any one of the thousands to 
whom lie ministered. He gradually lost faith in 
the Sacraments which he was giving to the 
people, the mass, the confession, the eucharist, 
the extreme unction, and the other means of grace 
that the Roman Catholics so liberally used. Re- 
cognizing that he was in a false position, he re- 



12 PATHEK 0'C0>:N0K'S LETTERS 

solved at all liazards to free himsell' from the de- 
plorable state of hypocrisy in which he saw so 
many other priests spend their lives. 

Accordingly he went to Cincinnati in May, 1878, 
where he obtained litei'ar}^ employment, and 
thence to Boston. From there he came to New 
York and, after his conversion to Christ, organ- 
ized the Indej^endent Catholic Church, in conjunc- 
tion with other priests who had also renounced 
the teachings of the Church of Rome. 

Thanks be to God, the people were coming in 
vast numbers to hear the simple doctrine of salva- 
tion through Christ alone preached by those 
who had been priests of that Church which was 
cheating the souls of her votaries and keeping 
them in a state of degradation, superstition and 
idolatry. 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'Connor. 



Letter III, 

Sir: — On Fifth Avenue in this city, covering 

the square between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets, 
is a large white marble building known as ''The 
Cathedral." That building cost more than 
$5,000,000. A great part of this sum was made 
up by the sale of whiskey, wine and beer in the 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. l^ 

building at the great fair and bazaar held there a 
few years ago. You and your priests dispensed 
the liquor to the Irish people who freely drank it 
and paid double price for it, as they were told 
that the money was for the glory of God in build- 
ing his house. The more they drank at that 
Fair the more pleased their God was supposed to 
be. A Christian man in your place would say, 
^' The more Satan was pleased." But with you 
and your Church the end always and everywhere 
justifies the means. I leave it to any honest man 
to judge whether Christ or Satan reaped the fruit 
of that Fair. In the day when the eternal books 
are balanced we shall know how many young 
maidens and young men were sent on the road to 
destruction by that great '' Fair and Bazaar." If 
I add that the City was cheated out of the land 
on which your Cathedral is built, as Dexter A. 
Hawkins, Esq., an eminent lawyer of this city, 
proves in his pamphlet, it may well be asked, 
how can you have the effrontery to call it the 
House of God ? If the Saviour of the world were 
to come on earth again, would he enter there and 
set His seal upon the building as his temple ? 

I passed by your Cathedral the other day and 
observed that you are building a magnificent resi- 
dence — a palace you call it, on the east side of 
of the square fronting on Madison avenue. It is 
not quite as tine a mansion as that of A. T. Stew- 
art or William II. Vanderbilt, but it will be one 



14 FATHER O'cONNOr/S LETTEIIS 

of the notable buildings in New York when com- 
pleted in a style commensurate with the elegance 
in wliich you live. Whatever may be said of the 
pretensions of your Church to possess the 
keys of the kingdom of Heaven, no one 
will deny that you possess the keys of the treas- 
ures of the earth and the enjoyment of the good 
things of this world. When I was a youth in 
Ireland I heard my esteemed parish priest and 
relative, Rev. T. Enright of Causeway, County 
Kerry, say that it was generally believed, though 
it was not an article of faith, that Popes, Cardi- 
nals, Bishops, and priests, would occupy higher 
places in Heaven than the laity. The good, pious 
man and his congregation tirmly believed it, as I 
did also, nntil I had been a member of the priest- 
hood some years ; but as I mingled with the 
bishoi3S and clergy in this country, and observed 
their manner of life, my faith in their claim to a 
high place in Heaven was somewhat shaken. I 
saw, however, that you were bound to have as 
good a time on earth as grand palaces, costly fur- 
niture, fine carriages and goodly raiment can 
afford. 

The people are told that all this is necessary to 
upliold your state and to preserve the dignity of 
your high calling as men of God and ministers of 
Christ. You do not pretend that you derive any 
authority for the use of these luxuries from the 
sacred Scriptures, however strained, or that you 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 15 

were taught how to enjoy them when you sat at 
the feet of your teachers in the seminary. But 
being in the wcrld you tell the people that you 
have to be all things to all men that you may gain 
as many followers as possible. This you learned 
from your master in Rome, and your promotion 
from priest to bishoj) and Cardinal has followed 
your compliance with his teaching. Though the 
people, the poor working-people of every land, 
have to pay for these luxuric?^, it is not to please 
them that you indulge in them. Apart from the 
personal gratification you derive from them, you 
use them as decoys to attract the worldly-minded 
and the wealthy by displaying your power and 
grandeur as princes and rulers of the people. 

During a visit to Northfield, Mass., I met a 
Christian man, an ex-Judge of the Circuit Court 
of one of the districts in Illinois, who years ago 
had been a very active politician and a leader in 
the councils of the Democratic party. In con- 
versation with him I learned many things con- 
cerning the intimate relations of your Church 
with political parties and the powers of this 
world. He told me candidly that he was first at- 
tracted to an alliance with the Roman Catholic 
Church by the display of power and permanency 
that she was everywhere making in America. 
There was something solid in the line churches 
and institutions that were springing up in every 
city and town of the Union, which were owned by 



16 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

the bishops alone. Protestant churches were be- 
ing planted, too, but they were owned by the 
Christian citizens of each town, who could convert 
them into any use they pleased. But the people 
in the Roman Catholic Church had no control 
over the property tliej^ paid for. If not obedient 
to priest and bishop in all things, they could be 
excluded from the buildings they had erected. 
Where such power existed and was enforced, 
there must be strength and stability. So this 
politician and man of the world at that time 
judged, and with this knowledge he went into the 
councils of his party, and advised them, in all 
cases where they sought an alliance with Roman 
Catholic voters, to deal directly with the rulers 
of that Church. For many years he was the 
principal man in the secret committee appointed 
to treat with the bishop and priests in the great 
city where he dwells. The people were ignorant 
of this wire-pulling, but they obeyed their bishop 
and local pastors in what was commanded them, 
because thev knew that thouo-h their votes would 
benefit a certain political party, their Church 
would be exalted and her power increased, and 
that in some way or other they would be partak- 
ers of its grandeur. 

But those days are nearlv past. A new gener- 
ation of Irishmen has sprung up in America — the 
children of the emigrants of 1849 to 1852, who are 
not bound by the traditions that kept their fathers 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKET. 17 

obedient slaves to your Church. In the free in- 
stitutions of the United States their minds have 
been expanded, and in the practical life of the 
Americans around them their native shrewdness 
has been quickened to such a degree that they see 
through your system, and are judging it on its 
merits, without attaching any weight to your 
claims of Divine right and infallible authority. 

Very truly yours, 

James A. O'Connor. 



Lettek IV. 

Sir: — You recently consecrated to the Episco- 
pate Kev. Father O'Farrell, late pastor of St. 
Peter's Roman Catholic Church in this city. 
The most notable event in the life of this gentle- 
man has been the erection of the parochial schools 
attached to St. Peter's Church, where the chil- 
dren of the Irish people would receive a sepa- 
rate education. In his estimation the public 
schools, which have been the nurseries of Presi- 
dents, statesmen and men of note in America, 
were not of the kind or quality to elevate the 
Irish in this country. Virtually, Father O'Far- 
rell said to the Irish people of his parish, ^'Do 
not send your children to the public schools, 



18 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

lest they sliould grow up Americans. It matters 
not that this republic is greatest among the 
nations of the earth to-day, the children of Amer- 
icans are not fit companions for your children ; 
do not associate with them, therefore, but keep 
separate and apart from them. In after years, 
when your children take their place in the world, 
to work out their destiny, it will be as servants 
to these Americans who now go to the public 
schools. But never mind that ; you are a suj^e- 
rior race, and I will build school-houses for your 
children, where they will learn how to fit them- 
selves for their duties. You Pat, and Marv and 
Bridget, who have come to America with honest 
hearts, seeking to better your condition in life, 
do not allow your numerous progeny to mingle 
with these Americans ; there is danger in the 
contact, and it will be a woful day for you when 
your descendants become like them. Here are 
my Roman Catholic parish schools, sanctioned 
by the Pope, where the traditions of Old Ireland 
are preserved, and where no Bible is taught. 
Send your children to me, and I will instruct 
them in their duties to the Pope and the 'Holy' 
Church that Ireland loves so well." 

For his success in establishing parochial 
schools, and for this alone. Father O'Farrell has 
been distinguished among his co-laborers in the 
priesthood, and his reward has come from the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 19 

Pope's own hand in his elevation to the Bishop 
rick of the new See of Trenton, N. J. 

Father O'Farrell received a very liberal educa- 
tion. He had been my predecessor as a student 
in the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, France^ 
and after his ordination he was a professor in 
the Snlpitian Seminary of Montreal, before he 
took charge of St. Peter's Church here. But all 
his culture and learning have been placed at the 
disposal of his sovereign Lord the Pope, as will 
be seen by the following oath that he took as he 
knelt before you in your Cathedral : 

''I shall be from this hour thenceforward obe- 
dient to blessed Peter, the Apostle, and to the 
Holy Roman Church, and to the most blessed 
Father Pope Leo XIII, and to his successors can- 
nonically chosen. I shall assist them to retain 
and defend, against any man whatever, the 
Roman Popedom, without prejudice to my rank. 
I shall take care to preserve, defend and j)romote 
the rights, honors and privileges of the Holy 
Roman Church, of the Pope and of his successors 
aforesaid. With my whole strength I shall 
observe and cause to be observed by others the 
rules of the Holy Fathers, the decrees, ordinances 
or dispositions and mandates of the Apostolic 
See," etc. 

I am not one of those who see danger to the 
Republic from your Church. The days are past 
when Rome could influence the fate of nations. 



aO i;ATHEK O'CONNOR'S LETTER8 

The old man in the Vatican has become a cipher 
in the political affairs of Europe, because the 
people are learning how to govern themselves. 
Yet, when we find men like you, Mr. Cardinal, 
and your bishops, vowing obedience to one who 
calls himself the Sovereign Pontiff, there is dan- 
ger that the ignorant among your followers may 
become very good papists, but very bad citizens, 
and very bad Christians; when they see loyalty 
to the Pope made of more account than obedience 
to the Almighty or fidelity to the Government of 
the United States 

In the above oath. Bishop O'Farrell did not 
promise God any faithfulness or integrity in the 
discharge of his duties, nor did he pledge himself 
to obey the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
claims unswerving fidelity from every Christian. 
To you and to every Roman Catholic bishop, 
priest, and layman, the Pope takes precedence of 
Christ, yet it is in the name of the Redeemer that 
you all speak to the Irish people. May God 
help them to get away from your influence and 
that of Bishop O'Farrell and his fellows, who 
seek to perpetuate the power of the Pope of 
Rome over them by arrogating to themselves the 
prerogatives of the Son of God. You, Mr. Car- 
dinal, and the man you have laid your hands on 
to consecrate as bishop, know as well as I do that 
every human being who is conscious ot sin and 
desires to turn from evil ways to the way of God 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 21 

through the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. If 
you and your Pope and bishops and priests were 
swept off this globe to-day, every human being 
who crieth to the Lord in mercy would never- 
theless receive the blessing of forgiveness and 
reconciliation. This I preach to my congre- 
gation of Roman Catholics, converted Catholics 
and Christians, every Sunday, and as I read this 
letter to them we shall pray that you may be led 
to ask of the Holy Ghost, what is the truth of 
God regarding the salvation of sinners ? 
Yours truly, 

James A. O'Coni^or. 



Letter Y. 

Sir : — A few months ago the New York papers 
contained a long notice of the marriage of a 
Roman Catholic priest, the pastor of a leading 
Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn, On reading 
it, I wrote a letter to the papers which, with the 
original notice, caused some attention to be paid 
to the celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood. 

It seems that Rev. Father Michael Goodwin, a 
Roman Catholic priest ofHciating in the city of 
Brooklyn, had fallen in love with a woman and — 
married her. What else would you have him do? 
It is the usage of society when a man of mature 



22 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

years falls in love with a woman, and she recipro- 
cates his affection, that they should get married 
in an honorable Christian manner, and live de- 
cently, as civilized nations have enjoined by their 
laws. This is the general custom. In the Chris- 
tian Church, from the earliest ages, no man could 
be licitly ordained to the ministry who was not 
legitimately born of honorable public marriage. 
Dispensations may be, and have been, granted by 
your Church to the illegitimate children of Popes, 
Bishops and Princes, but that does not alter the 
law. You know, as well as I do in my own case, 
that you could not have been ordained a priest if 
your honored parents in Brooklyn, where you 
were born, had not been married according to 
Christian custom. But the case of Father Michael 
Goodwin was peculiar in many respects. He was 
a Roman Catholic priest ministering to a large 
congregation in Brooklyn ; that is, hearing the 
confessions of all the people in his j^arish, offering 
up the sacrifice of the mass for them and attend- 
ing to their spiritual wants. It was a great shock 
to the faith of the people in the Roman Church 
that one of their priests should get married. But 
there was something awful in the fact that he got 
married to a nun — the superioress of the convent 
in Brooklyn. It almost took aAvay my breath 
when I learned this. Why, nothing of this kind 
had ever before occurred in America ! To be sure 
some hundreds of years ago one Rev. Father 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 23 

Martin Luther got married to a pious nun named 
Catharine Bora, and during the French Revolu- 
tion priests and nuns got married. But it was as 
if a new reformation of the Roman Catholic 
Church was dawning that a priest and nun should 
get married in the " City of Churches," as Brook- 
lyn is called. 

There is a stern reality about this case. To 
make sure of it I sent one of our Independent 
Catholic priests to Brooklyn to learn the details. 

This gentleman. Father McF , was in St. Mary's 
Seminary, Baltimore, with Father Goodwin, and 
naturally took a deep interest in the case. He 
saw the nun's sister, a married lady in Brooklyn, 
and she confirmed the whole story. After their 
marriage Father Goodwin and his nun- wife went 
to Philadelphia, where they are now living, and 
raising a family to the Lord. 

A great uproar was created in Roman Catholic 
circles by this marriage. In the estimation of 
Roman Catholics this nun and priest had " broken 
their vows." As to the nun, her "vow" was a 
'' simple" one, from which she could be released 
by the bishop ; but it is generally believed by 
Roman Catholics that the " vow" of a priest like 
Fatlier Goodwin could be annulled only by the 
Pope himself. 

Now, it is known to j^ou, Mr. Cardinal, and to 
every Roman ecclesiastic, that jjriests, at their 
ordination, or any time afterwards, do not make 



24 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LErTERS 

a VOW of celibacy. At their ordination, priests 
promise (''promitto'') to be ''chaste, temperate, 
and of good behavior," as the Apostle enjoins, 
and nothing more. 

I well remember the time of my own ordination 
to sub-deaconship and deaconship in the chapel 
of St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, by Bishop 
Becker, of Wilmington, Del , June 29, 1871, and 
my ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Foley 
in Chicago, Dec. 23, same year. And I here pub- 
licly say that at no time did 1 make a vow of celi- 
bacy, nor did the score of young men who were 
ordained with me the same year from the same 
seminary. I have inquired of many priests who 
were ordained by different bishops in America 
and Europe, if they had made any such vow when 
they were ordained, and their answer was that 
they had not. I have consulted the Pontificale 
Romanum and manuals for the ordination of 
priests, and there is not in all of them any such 
vow exacted from those who present themselves 
for ordination. 

History tells us that priests were married, de- 
spite fruitless attempts to enforce celibacy, made 
by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century, 
and other Popes and councils at various times, 
until Pope Gregory VII., called Hildebrand, in 
the year 1074, enacted a law that henceforward no 
pricai s should marry, and that those -vho then 
had wives should put them away The clergy 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 25 

rebelled, but Gregory had the civil power of all 
the kings of Europe at his back, and the priests 
were compelled to submit formally ; though, like 
honest men, they were faithful to their poor wives 
secretly. 

From the enactment of that unnatural law can 
be dated the corruption of morals in the Church, 
The subject is too indelicate to pursue at length. 
Suffice it to say that priests were like other men , 
that the injunction of the Creator to the first man 
and woman to ''increase and multiply" touched 
them as it did Adam and Eve, and that if the law 
of the Pope could prohibit honorable marriage in 
priests and laymen it could not stifle the instinct 
of love that God had implanted in human beings, 
as well as in the animal kingdom generally. 

I will close this letter by the statement that I 
am convinced if marriage had not been prohibited 
by one of your Popes in the eleventh century^ no 
Reformation would be needed in the sixteenth 
century. If the priests of your Church were per- 
mitted by your laws to wed their mates in an 
honorable manner and build up homes and raise 
children to the Lord, the sweeping work that 
Almighty God gave into the hands of Martin 
Luther and his contemporaries to do would have 
been unnecessary. But tlirough the centuries, 
from Gregory's tyrannical decree against the mar- 
riage of priests to the close of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, immorality among the clergy was prevalent 



26 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

iiTitil its climax was reached in the person of the 
infamous Pope Alexander VI. 

God bless the memory of Martin Luther, and 
keep it fresh and green in our hearts. His heroic 
fight against the corruptions of the Roman 
Church, and his brave example and encourage- 
ment to Catholic priests to hear the voice of the 
Lord calling on them to ''come out of her, My 
people, and be not partakers of her iniquities,'^ 
will forever endear him to all Christian peoples. 

The Apostle Paul writes to his son in the faith, 
Timothy, counselling him in his ministry, and 
prophesying as follows : "Now the Spirit speak- 
eth expressly, that in the latter times some shall 
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
spirits and doctrines of devils ; forbidding to 
marry, and commanding to abstain from meat." 
(I. Tim. iv.) If in this prophesy the Apostle had 
not in view the doctrines of your Church that calls 
itself Christian, I would like to know what other 
organization has been established in the world 
that answers to it. 

Hopeful of your conversion ultimately, I am 
Tours respectfully, 

James A. O'Connor, 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET 27 



Letter VI. 

Sir?— The celibacy cf the Roman Catholic 
clergy, to which I referred in my last letter, in 
connection with the marriage of Father Michael 
Goodwin to a nun in Brooklyn, is a subject of 
great importance to Roman Catholics. In this 
city and in all the cities and towns of the United 
States, the question arises continually^ Why do 
not Roman Catholic priests marry like other min- 
isters ? In this letter I shall endeavor to throw 
some more light on the subject. Taken in its 
best aspects, it is a most unsavory topic, and as 
such it has been discussed by Protestant and 
Catholic writers at various times. I must confess 
it is with a feeling of pity J have turned away 
from the perusal of many books on this subject. 
The writers of such works begin with the assump- 
tion that all priests and nuns are immoral in their 
lives. The old spelling-book used to have the 
definitions : */ Masculine, priest ; feminine, nun.'' 
So it is not to be wondered at that the average 
human being should couple them together as in 
some respects man and wife. 

Now it may startle some jiersons to learn from 
me that there is very little immorality between 
j)riests and nuns in Ireland, France or America, 
of which countries alone I can speak from expe- 



28 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

rience. Putting aside the motive of adherence to 
their rules, one main reason why priests do not 
make love to nuns is because the latter are most 
frequently very undesirable beings. Another 
reason is that the good-looking and pretty nuns 
would be sure to tell. There was a notable case 
in Bloomington, Illinois, just before I went there, 

in 1872. Father D was appointed pastor of 

the Roman Catholic church in that town by 
Father Halligan, of Chicago, the Administrator 
of the diocese during the interregnum between 
the retirement of Bishop Duggan into the insane 
asylum of the Sisters of Charity of St. Louis, 
Mo., and the appointment of Dr Thomas Foley, 
of Baltimore, as Bishop of Chicago. Scarcely 
had Bishop Foley assumed the reins of govern- 
ment when he began to bring ''order out of 
chaos," as Bishop Becker, of Wilmington, 
Del., said in his sermon at the consecration 
of the former. One of his first acts was to 

remove Father D from Bloomington and send 

him out of the diocese. Bishop Foley kept his 
own counsel, and all the priests were puzzled to 

know ''what was the matter wdth D ." It 

could not be learned at first, but like all such 
things it came out in time. I had not been in 
Bloomington three months when I learned that 
Father D. had to leave the parish because he was 
so indiscreet as to put his arm around the neck of 
a pretty nun in the convent while hearing her con- 



'TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 2^ 

fession. It was the summer season, and perhaps 
the holy father wanted to brush away a fly from 
the fair round neck, or perhaps he only wanted 
to stretch his arm, which had become cramped 
from the position of supporting his well 
rounded and handsome chin. At all events the 
nun — she was a young one, and did not know 
any better — told her ''extraordinary" confessor 
that Father D. had acted very queer at her last 
confession, and she did not care to go near him 
again. The ''extraordinary " confessor was com- 
pelled to take action in the matter, and both 
Father D. and the nun were sent away. 

Another case of priests and nuns getting into 
trouble in our day on account of "celibacy" was 

that of Father D e, the pastor of a prominent 

church in Chicago. He was a brilliant young 
man, and was promoted to St. Patrick's because 
of his shining qualities. While I was in the semi- 
nary at Baltimore I was shocked, in common with 
the other students from Chicago, to learn that 

Father D e had been removed from his parish. 

After I was ordained priest, I inquired about the 
matter and the only thing I could learn was that 
he had been mixed up in the affairs of the Lor- 
retto convent that had been dissolved by Bishop 
Foley. The nuns were sent away and the mother 
6Uj)erior became crazy. It was learned that 
regular orgies were held in the convent at night, 
and a stop had to be put to them when the neiij:h- 



90 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTEBS 

bors complained of the nuisjince. (It is worth 
noting that the piiests and nuns above referred to 
are still believers in tlie Roman Catholic faith). 

There are many other cases of this kind, by no 
means edifying, that my memory could call up, 
but I will not refer to them. It is not an agree- 
able topic to discuss, however interesting it may 
be to you and your j^riests and nuns. 

As a result of my discourse on this subject and 
my last letter to you, I received a scurrilous let- 
ter from a highly intelligent Roman Catholic in- 
veighing against me for my assertion that the 
corruption of morals in the Roman Church 
had its origin at the time thai Pope Gregory 
(Hildebrand) decreed, in 107-4, that henceforward 
priests could not contract marriage. In that 
letter I merely quoted Roman Catholic his- 
tory. Any reader can find in the libraries 
reference to this subject by Catholic and Protes- 
tant writers. Common sense tells us that such a 
decree as that of Gregory could no more make 
men and woman chaste than could a law enacted 
by any government in the world forbidding the 
birds of the air to mate together, be effectual in 
its results. 

If you, Mr. Cardinal, would write your memoirs, 
and tell the truth in them, we would tind therein 
what I have often heard from the lips of priests : 
*' If I were not a priest, I would like to marry 
Miss So-and-So, for she is a very nice girl, and I 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY/ 81 

tliink would make a good wife." And how often 
have I heard ladies say of the good-looking 
clergymen of the Roman Catholic Church: 
^' What a pity he is a priest." In like manner, 
it is sometimes said of some one of the poor 
women in convents : "What a pity she is a nun." 
though I must confess this is not often the case, 
for most nuns are very homely indeed. The 
public can see the best of them in this city beg- 
ging in the rum shops for the support of your 
churches and schools, and they are enough to 
make celibates of all men. No fact in history is 
better established, even by the testimony of Ro- 
man Catholic writers, than that gross immorality 
has gone hand in hand with the so-called celibacy 
of your Church. The number of ecclesiastics from 
the Pope downwards who have set the "celibacy 
decrees" of Gregory VII., at naught would make 
a small army. But you will say we live in times 
of purer morals now, and there is no corruption 
among the clergy and monastic orders. C ertainly. 
Protestantism has a restraining influence on the 
morals of the Roman Catholic clergy, and there 
is not;as much public scandal among the priests 
and nuns as there used to be. But beneath the 
calm surface there is a seething discontent among 
them that will ultimately break down the un- 
natural barriers that make them odious to them- 
selves and out of sorts with mankind in general. 
The wretched lives that some of these priests and 



82 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

nuns are now enduring cannot be borne much 
longer. A combination of circumstances causes 
them to remain in their present positions. The^ 
shrink from wounding the hearts of their parents 
and friends, and they fear the hounds of calumny 
that your Church would send after them. Their 
manhood and womanhood are undermined by 
your unnatural system of repression until they 
are like sheep when they come into the great 
world. But chief est of all the reasons that keeps, 
them slaves of your Church is that they do not 
know any other door by which they can enter 
heaven, rickety and soiled as the Roman door is. 
But a new light is shining before the minds of 
many of them, the light of the Gospel of Christ, 
pure and undefiled. This you cannot extinguish, 
for the flame is burning brightly in the lamp that 
the Son of God holds in his hand to illumine the 
way of every human being that desires to rise up 
from sin and come to the Almighty Father. A 
great company of priests and religious men and 
women are directing their gaze toward that light, 
and before the King shall come in his glory, many, 
many thousands of them will be enrolled in tha 
army of the Lord. 

As a result of your perusal of these letters, Car- 
dinal, the notion might enter your head to get 
married to some good sensible woman. I beg you 
to believe that I shall be only too proud and, 
happy to perform the ceremony without a reward. 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 33 

except the consciousness of making two hearts 
happy. And we shall give you and your bride 
such a glorious reception in Masonic Temple as 
New York has never before witnessed. Stranger 
things have happened, as we know from history. 
The signs of the times are all favorable for a new 
departure in the moral government of your 
Church. You will render the name of McCloskey 
immortal if you have the courage to be a leader 
in these times. 

Yery respectfully yours, 

James A. O'Coititoe. 



Letter YII. 

Sir : — Many volumes have been written on the 
subject of nuns and nunneries, yet much remains 
to be told. Like all priests, I have been thrown 
much in the society of nuns. Many of my rela- 
tives are nuns in Ireland. I knew them as a boy 
and I loved them as sweet angels of God. I was 
acquainted only with their exterior life, such as 
appeared when I visited them in the parlor of the 
convent. I believed then, as I was taught, that 
they were the "spouses of Christ," as the Roman 
ritual and prayer books represent them. 

But when I became a priest and had daily in- 
ter/nourse with the inmates of convents, I learned 



34 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

to pity the sad fate of the young creatures who 
were compelled to lead such lives as I observed 
in them. It is a sad sight to look upon hundreds 
of women living together, thinking they are 
pleasing God by abstaining from marriage, as if 
marriage was a sin ; and the Church of Rome — 
the voice of God, as they deem it — telling them 
that they are the spouses or wives of Christ, 
and that to be obedient to the Church is the 
surest passport to heaven. 

In 1877 I was somewhat startled in my notions 
about nuns, and their supposed ''happy" lives in 
convents, when I learned that sister Rose, the 
music teacher in St. Jarlath's Church, had got 
married to a letter-carrier in Chicago. I thought 
over this a good deal, for I had known Sister 
Rose to be a most exemplary nun, and I puzzled 
my brain to know how or why she had got mar- 
ried. She was a little woman, young and not 
over pretty, but what you would call attractive. 

One morning she gave her lesson as usual, and 
quietly slipped out to be married at the midday 
hour. I would give a good deal to know how 
she did her courting. In modern life young peo- 
ple generally know each other for some time 
before they enter into a marriage engagement, 
and when they take upon themselves the solemn 
obligations of matrimony their friends and ac- 
quaintances are called to witness the ceremony. 
But here was a poor nun running off in her con- 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 35 

vent garb to marry the postman. Why did she 
not consult her family and friends on this inter- 
esting occasion ? Because she had no family or 
friends after she had entered into convent life. 
All outside the walls of the convent were dead to 
her, except some kind Protestant friends who 
might pity her if she told them about her condi- 
tion. She told the postman and he had pity on 
her. He must have been a good fellow. I will 
try to find out his address to congratulate him. 

In Chicago, during my ministry there, several 
nuns left their convents and returned to the 
^' world," as your Church calls all social life and 
duty that is not ''religious." Some time ago a 
young lady called to see me; she told me that 
she had just left the convent attached to the Re- 
demptorist Church in Third street, this city. She 
was an only child and her parents in Bay Ridge, 
Long Island, readily took her home. She told 
me why she left, but it would be improper for me 
to repeat her story. Another lady, who recently 
came to me, told me she had left the convent in 
Columbus, Ohio, and when she came to her 
mother's house in Brooklyn the door was 
slammed in her face, and she was sent a wan- 
derer in the world without a friend or acquain- 
tance. I placed her in the way of getting friends 
who would help her if she i)roved worthy. 

From across the ocean comes the intelligence 
that a young nun was brought to the police sta- 



86 FATHEIl O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

tion in Gratz, Germany, wet tlirongli and in a 
state of unconsciousness. It appears that she 
had been forced to enter a convent, and that she 
had made an attempt to escape by jumping from 
the convent into a mill-stream which flows under 
the wall of the building. The superior of the 
convent appeared at the police station to claim 
the nun, but the authorities refused to surrender 
her. Much indignation was expressed by the 
populace. 

From this it may seem as if nuns are forcibly 
detained in convents in Europe, but are at liberty 
to come out of them in the United States. It is 
true that fear of the law and public opinion com- 
pels your Church to open the convent doors to a 
nun when she desires to come out, but there is a 
power to keep her in more binding than bars and 
bolts. It is the discipline in which she has been 
trained. She knows that once she enters the 
gates of the convent she ha^ placed on herself a 
mark that time can never efface with her own 
family and the Roman Catholic public. 

If she leaves, where shall she go ? She dare not 
live with her own people even if they were willing 
to receive her, which not one family in a hundred 
would do. IIow could she face the half averted 
looks of the neighbors and companions of her 
youth ? How could she bear the sneering 
remarks of the coarser sort, that ' she must have 
done something or she would not have left the 



r 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 37 



convent. Perhaps the '^ something" she had 
done was to protect her virtue from the lust of 
some wine-drinking priest of your church. It is 
not an unusual thing for a priest to visit the con- 
vent, which is always near them, after dinner, 
especially if he has partaken freely of the liquid 
refreshments that adorn every priest's table. 

I have heard a great deal from other priests of 
what transpires on these occasions, but I shall 
speak only of what I know. Every nun takes a 
vow of "''obedience," and generally keeps it 
where her favorite priest is concerned. 

I would not have it understood for one moment 
that I consider all nuns immoral. By no means. 
But so many of them are evidently destined by 
nature for prolific mothers, that it is not to be 
wondered at if some of them indulge in illicit 
pleasures. They enter the convents while young, 
so young that they do not know their own 
minds, and when love comes to them they vainly 
regret that they cannot honorably satisfy the 
cravings of the heart in this respect. 

If the nun departs from her convent, whatever 
may be the ''something" that impels her to 
leave, where shall she go ? She rarely knows 
anything by which she can earn her bread in the 
struggling world. She has no letters of recom- 
mendation by which she can gain the confidence 
of good people. The average Protestant Ithinks 
that most nuns lead immoral lives, and, of course, 



88 TATnER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

they will not be received into respectable fam- 
ilies. No door is open to them except the door 
of perdition, and yet not a week passes but some 
of them run this risk, for the hell they leave 
behind them is worse than anything could be 
outside. 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'CoxxoE. 



Letter YIII. 

Sir : — When I was a Roman Catholic, I thought 
the Pope was not only ther greatest man in all the 
world, but also the holiest. I do not think so now 
and with good reason. 

Passing by the history of many bad Popes, as 
well as the life and adventures of the infamous 
scoundrel, Pope Alexander the Sixth, who in his 
day committed every crime from murder to pick- 
ing pockets, let us take a recent instance in the 
career of the present '^ infallible" Pope, Leo 
XIII. He has been accounted a learne^-'and 
shrewd inan, altogether a different kind of person 
from the good-natured old Pope Pius IX., who 
preceded him. 

Recently we learned that the gi'eat banking 
concern called the Union Generale had failed. 
The failure of a bank or even a commercial crisis 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 39 

of great magnitude does not much affect religion. 
But this particular failure has far-reaching con- 
sequences, which, I am confident, will promote 
the growth of the Christian religion in a nation 
that has been called " the eldest daughter of the 
Church." 

The history of this bank, called the ''Union 
Genera le," is as follows : A smart Frenchman, 
named Bontoux, who had been speculating on the 
Bourse during the presidency of Marshal Mc- 
Mahon, thought he could make capital out of the 
popularity the president had acquired with the 
Bourbon and the Clerical or Jesuitical party in 
France. When Marshal McMahon retired from 
the Presidency of the Republic, M. Bontoux, 
after consultation with some of the leading Ro- 
man Catholics of France, lay and clerical, went 
to Rome and laid before the General of the 
Jesuits, or '' Black Pope," as he is called, a plan 
which he said, if adopted, would surely restore to 
the Roman Catholic Church her ancient glory, 
and to France her legitimate rulers. This plan 
was that the Church should get possession of all 
the money in France by establishing a bank that 
would be the most powerful in the world. France 
has 37,000,000 people, of whom 35,000,000 :ire 
Roman Catholics, or at least nominally so. That 
means 7,000,000 families. Now if each family of 
this number that puts money in banks could be 
induced to make one general bank the depository 



40 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LErTERS 

of their savings, what a formidable power such 
an institution would become in a few years. M. 
Bontoux explained further that he had the en- 
dorsement of all the Catholic nobles, and men of 
wealth in France, and, of course, of all the 
Jesuits, bishops and priests. 

"Go and see Pope Leo XIII., and ask his 
blessing on the enterprise," said Father Berckx. 
"Give me a note of introduction," said M. Bon- 
toux. *' I'll go with you myself and introduce 
you," responded the Jesuit. Admitted into the 
august presence of his holiness, they devoutly 
kissed his big toe and told him of the grand 
scheme that was to restore him to his temporal 
power and make him the supreme ruler of earth, 
as were the Popes of past times. Pope Leo XIIL 
has one idea in his head. Our poor Roman Cath- 
olic brethren imagine that he is all the time 
thinking how can he, as the vicar of Christ, 
help poor sinners to become good Christians, as 
our Saviour does. Not at all. The only idea in 
the present Poj)e's head is how can he regain the 
temporal power and sovereignty that Pope Pius 
IX. lost through his stupidity. How the name 
of Leo XIIL would go down famous in history if 
he should regain what his blundering predecessor 
had lost! 

He took the bait and formally gave his blessing 
to the new bank. He did not do this as you 
would, Mr. Cardinal, if you were called upon in 



^m TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 41 

similar circumstances. Any common priest lias as 
much ^^ power" as you in bestowing a blessing 
on anything, from a big cathedral all the way 
down to a sick cow. But the blessing of the 
Pope carries tremendous weight, for it is in his 
capacity as ''successor of St. Peter/' "supreme 
pontiff," and ''infallible head of the Church," 
that he gives it. 

M. Bontoux, when he had secured the precious 
blessing in writing, immediately left Rome and 
returned to Paris. The first thing he did was to 
strike ojff several thousand medals in commemo- 
ration of the event. Next he spent 1,000,000 
francs, or $250,000, in advertising this wonderful 
blessing. Tlien he started his bank. The Jesuits 
threw all their vast wealth into it, and counselled 
their penitents in the confessional to do likewise. 
The Count de Chambord gave 6,000,000 francs, 
the Duke de Broglie 2,000,000 francs, and other 
noble Frenchmen in proportion. The whole body 
of Roman Catholics followed suit. They were 
told from the altar and in the confessional that 
the "blessing" of the Pope carried certain indul- 
gences which could be gained by depositing their 
savings in the great Roman Catholic bank. M. 
Bontoux was in high feather. So much money 
poured into his bank, he did not know what to do 
with it. But he was a man of resources. Having 
got the blessing of the Pope — the vicai' or agent 
of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth — what was 



42 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

there he could not do ? He established branches 
of his bank in all parts of France, in Austria, 
Hungary, Belgium, Bavaria, and was making ar- 
rangements to have a branch in the United States. 

But the Jesuits were expelled from France soon 
after President Grevy came into office, and, on 
leaving, of course withdrew their money from M. 
Bontoux's bank. The blessing of the Pope, how- 
ever, once given can never be recalled, and it re- 
mained with the ingenious banker. He began to 
''water" his stock, and give false reports like 
some bankers and railroad magnates that we 
know of in this country. But the Jesuits bad 
gone back on him and he could not survive the 
shock. 

His bank failed, and its doors were closed. 
Thirty-one strong boxes in the Union Generale's 
vaults were found empty, and an examination of 
its books prove that when M. Bontoux stated 
that its profits were 67,000,000 francs, there was 
really a deficit of 96,000,000 francs. And the end 
of all has come when M. Bontoux, president, and 
M. Feder, manager, were arrested, and legal pro- 
ceedings began against several of the directors. 

Let me ask you. Cardinal, is the Government 
of France strong enough to indict, for conspiracy 
in this fraudulent transaction, Pope Leo XIIL, 
as the principal beneficiary of this robbing 
scheme ? I doubt it, for there was no power in 
the Government of the United States to punish 



TO CARDINAL MC^^CLOSKKT 43 

I Archbishop Purcell, when he closed on five million 
dollars of the hard earnings of the poor Roman 
Catholics of Cincinnati four years ago. They 
never got a cent of their money ; it was all gone- 
The millions of French families that have been 
robbed by this bank that the ''infallible" Pope 
of Rome blessed so heartily will never again see a 
cent of their money. How much of it has found 
its way into the treasury of the Pope ? The peo- 
ple imagine that he is " infallible" when he tells 
them that he knows more about Christianity and 
the truth of God than does the Bible. Yet you 
say, in the present case, he was not ''infallible" 
when he gave his blessing to M. Bontoux's bank. 
But ^'infallibility" can never be deceived. 

The day is dawning when the people who now 
blindly believe in that Pope will see that his 
claims for holiness and infallibility are based on 
false pretences, and that instead of being the 
greatest" maa in the world, he is the most unmiti- 
gated humbug. 

Very truly yours, 

James A. O'Connob. 



44 FATUER O'CONNOn'S LETTERS 



Lettee IX. 

Sir : — The brethren whom I left behind me in 
your church feel great sympathy for the Pope, 
because he is no longer a temporal sovereign able 
to hold up his head with the best of crowned 
monarchs. Since his own Italian countrymen 
told him to step down from his throne he has 
sulked in the Vatican. He cries out to all the 
world that he is a j^risoner, and that he is spend- 
ing his time in solitude on account of the evil 
days that have come upon him. What kind of a 
prison he is in, and what this solitude means, we 
learn from the following facts about his house- 
hold. 

In Rome the Pope has declined compliance 
with the law requiring the filling up of a census 
paper. A bundle of papers was, however, for- 
warded to a certain prelate of the household, who 
made out the returns, from which it appears there 
are over five hundred persons living in the Vatican, 
nearly one-half of whom are females. 

When I read this statement, I could scarcely 
believe my senses. Five hundred persons in one 
house, waiting on the Pope day and night, and 
half of them females ! 

Before I ask the question, what did he want 
with two hundred and fifty women, or what busi- 



I 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 45 



ness they had to do with an eqnal number of 
"celibate" cardinals, bishops and monsignori, 
permit me to remark that the jjopnlar belief of 
the American Roman Catholic of Irish importa- 
tion, is that the Pope is a prisoner in the Vatican, 
that he is in chains, and that a penny to buy a 
loaf of bread, {" Peter's Pence ") would be very 
acceptable to him. Father Gavazzi told me last 
year that when the Pope first shut himself up in 
the Vatican, the pries rs in the rural parishes in 
Italy and France, represented to the people that 
his dungeon was so vile he was compelled to sleep 
on a straw bed and eat the scantiest fare. The 
consequence was that the poor people made up 
packages of bed-clothing, and boxes of provisions 
to be sent to him. 

There are eleven thousand rooms in the palace 
of the Vatican. Its library, picture galleries, 
mosaics, and museums of art are the finest in the 
world. All the bonds of the United States gov- 
ernment could not purchase them if they were 
offered for sale. During the last six months the 
Pope has made believe that he must leave Ivonie, 
as his position there is becoming intolerable, but 
he did not know where to go. France has ex- 
pelled the Jesuits, and does not want them back. 
Bismark has no asylum in Germany to offer him. 
England would give him the island of Malta, and 
he would be glad to accept it but for the fact that 
liis faithful Irish subjects are at war with the 



46 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

''hated Saxon," and they would turn against him 
to a man. But if he could find a place outside of 
Rome to make a new home for himself in these 
declining days of the Papacy, how could he trans- 
port his Vatican treasures thither ? And above 
all, how or where could he find a mansion large 
enough to lodge the two hundred and fifty female 
members of his household, not to speak of the 
two hundred and fifty males ? 

America, ''the land of the free," is the only 
country where the Pope could live in indepen- 
dence of "European despots," and to this great 
nation I doubt not you have invited him. But 
where would you advise him to locate with his 
household ? 

The Mormon question is in the front rank for 
discussion ; why does not some one suggest to the 
Pope to go to Salt Lake City with his retinue of 
five hundred followers, male and female. There 
is not another city in America that would tolerate 
the dwelling together of five hundred men and 
women without marriage. But Utah is pre-emi- 
nently " the land of the free" in this respect, and 
there alone would the Pope be allowed to have 
two hundred and fifty females under the same 
roof with himself, and his cardinals and bishops. 

Notwithstanding the advantages that Utah 
holds out to him, I doubt, however, that he will 
come to America with all his retinue. The lib- 
erty enjoyed by all classes in this country would 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 47 

not agree with him and his peculiar institutions. 
And so many priests are now loudly protesting 
against the infamies of his Church that I think 
his household of five hundred could not long hold 
together without getting married, as all priests 
now are doing. 

From Hartford information has been received 
that the Rev. Father Edward Agudi, assistant 
priest at St. Joseph's Church, in Winsted, Conn., 
has finally dissolved himself from the church by 
the unusual course of getting married. Father 
Agudi left Winsted ostensibly to attend a con- 
vention of priests in Boston, and was believed by 
Father Leo, pastor of St. Joseph's, to have re- 
mained in that city. The fact has now been 
ascertained that Father Agudi went forth from 
Winsted to New Haven, and was there married 
to Bridget D. Welsh, a daughter of Patrick 
Welsh, of that city. The girl had formerly been 
employed in Winsted, and had attended St. 
Joseph's Church. The marriage ceremony is 
reported to have been performed by a Methodist 
clergyman, for the reason that the bridegroom 
would have been recognized by any one of the 
Roman Catholic clergymen to whom he might 
have applied. The couple have located in 
Bridgeport, where the husband has opened a 
restaurant or dining saloon as a means of winning 
bread for the future. The intimacy between tho 
couple was conducted so discreetly while in 



is FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

Win? ted, and the correspondence so carefully 
concealed after the young woman's return to 
New Haven, that Father Agudi's parishioners had 
no intimation of the affair. I had the pleasure of 
meeting Father Agudi in Bridgejjort last sum- 
mer. All classes of people speak well of him 
(they call him Mr. Gody in that city), and even 
the Roman Catholics patronize his restaurant, 
and think it an honor to be served by a priest's 
wife. He promised to come to New York and 
work with me for the conversion of our Roman 
Catholic brethren. He is very happy in his 
marriage ; and though he is an Italian and his 
wife Irish, they are now 

*' Two S3uls witli but a single thonght. 
Two hearts that beat as one.*' 

And we have the Rev. Father Leeming, of Bos- 
ton, throwing aside his priestly robes to go on the 
stage. In his case it is merely a change from one 
theatrical performance to another. Any person 
seeing you and your priests performing mass 
would say you were consummate actors, so that 
the transition from Romish altar to the stage is 
not so very great after all. From England we 
learn that the Rev. Dr. Case, an Oxford liian, 
who joined the Roman Church some years ago, 
and was appointed to the charge of the mission of 
Gloucester by the Bishop of Clifton, has returned 
to the Anglican Church. -^ * * The Rev. 



TO CARDINAL MOCLOSKET. • 4S^ 

Father Eoberts, a nephew of Cardinal Manning, 
and a late member of the order of the Oblates of 
St. Charles Borromeo, Bayswater, has returned 
to the Anglican Chnrch, and has married. 

These are only a few of the many priests who, 
every week, are proving their honesty by leaving 
their eminent positions in the Roman Catholic 
Church, whether the cause be loss of faith in the 
doctrines of Rome or the gain of a lady's love. 
If all priests got married like those brethren they 
would be better men, and would not be so dreaded 
by every intelligent Roman Catholic mother who 
has handsome daughters. 

The Pope will not come to America you may be 
sure. He and his cardinals and priests with their 
female companions should change their ways 
among us here, or they would be suspected of 
Mormonism. In fact some shrewd observers 
already see a marked similarity between Roman- 
ism and Mormonism. 

Very truly yours, 

James A. O'Cottttob. 



50 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 



Letter X. 

Sir : — If in the providence of God all the Pro« 
testant ministers in the world were called by the 
Master in one day to give an account of their 
stewardships, the people of God — those who come 
to him by faith in Jesus Christ — would still be 
safe. The Bible would remain to instruct the 
mind, and the love of Christ for repentant sinners 
would continue forever. "He tasted death for 
every man." "Wherefore, he is able to save 
them to the uttermost that come unto God by 
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them." " For such a high priest became us, who 
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin- 
ners, and made higher than the heavens ; who 
needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer 
up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for 
the people' s ; for this he did once, when he offered 
himself." 

But if the Almighty should sweep off the face 
of the earth the Pope, cardinals, archbishops, 
bishops, and priests, wJiat could the Roman Cath- 
olic people do for salvation? They would not 
know what to do. They may have Douay Bibles 
in their homes, but they have never been taught 
how to use them. They do no know how to ap- 
proach the throne of grace except by using the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 51 

sacraments and ceremonies of your church as 
step-ladders. And the common saying, ''No 
priest, no sacrament," is continually impressed 
upon their minds as an absolute truth. I have 
had much experience as a Roman Catholic priest 
in ministering to the souls of the people, and I 
deliberately say that I never met Avith one Roman 
Catholic, who believed that forgiveness of sin and 
reconciliation wich God could be had by any 
other means than the mediatorship of the priest. 
He stands between them and their creator. He of- 
fers up the sacrifice of the mass for them, they be- 
lieving it is the same as the sacrifice of Calva- 
ry. He speaks to them, by authority he says, on 
the part of God, and in his name grants them par- 
don and absolution, no matter how heinous their 
transgressions may be. From the cradle to the 
grave he has blessings and indulgences for them, 
which only make them more hardened sinners, 
seeing how easily they can be forgiven. God pity 
tliem ! Many of them are in good faith, believing 
that the priest can save their souls. They know 
not that it has been written in the sacred volume, 
''There is but one mediator between God and 
man, the man Christ Jesus ;" or if they know this 
they practically thrust Jesus aside and put the 
priest in his place. 

After service a few Sundays ago, I noticed a 
crowd gathered at the head of the stairs leading 
to the street. I wished to go by quietly, but 



53 FATHEK O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

some one plucked me by tlie coat and said, "here 
lie is." Drawn into the group I was compelled 
to listen to the controversy that was going on. 
The central figure was a stalwart Irishman who 
was volubly discussing some points in the sermon 
I had preached that evening. He summed up his 
arguments against salvation by Christ alone by 
the statement that he as a Roman Catholic " did 
not know Christ, and did not see him ; but he 
knew the priest and could see him any time, and 
talk to him about his soul." As Sydney Smith 
said that it w^ould require a surgical operation to 
get a joke into some men's heads, so I thought 
my brother Irishman would have to undergo a 
similar process before he could receive the knowl- 
edge that his soul could be saved if there were 
never a Roman Catholic priest in the world. 

Soon after I began to preach a Christianity dif- 
ferent from and ''independent" of your system 
of religion, a gentleman called on me and said he 
was attracted to the Roman Catholic religion by 
many things that he deemed commendable in it. 
He was an American protestant, and the example 
of Dr. O. A. Brownson, Father Hecker and other 
perverts to Rome had much influence in determin- 
ing his course. He wished to become a Roman 
Catholic ; but before finally deciding he resolved 
to go to Rome and there, at the fountain-head, 
see what this religion was. He broke up his 
home in this city and took his family with him 



TO CAnDINAL M<^'CLOSKEY. 53 

for a long residence in Rome. When the heart 
of Martin Luther was pained by the scandals and 
impieties of the Roman Catholic Church in Ger- 
many, he also went to Rome to strengthen his 
faith by imbibing of the waters of life as they 
iflowed from the lips of the Pope. My American 
friend was as eager as Luther to drink of these 
waters if they proved wholesome. Speaking of 
the effect the Roman system of religion j)ro- 
duces even on persons of the greatest intelligence, 
he related the following anecdote : he had a very 
dear friend, a Neapoliran nobleman, who was a 
strict Roman Catholic. This nobleman vras taken 
sick, and when the American went to see him it 
was apparent the disease was deadly. Being ad- 
vised to prepare for his last end, he said, " I have 
made all the requisite preparations. I have called 
in my physician and i)aid him a handsome fee to 
use all his skill in my case — that is his business. I 
have consulted my lawyer, and paid him liberally 
to arrange my affairs — that is his business. And 
finally I paid my priest all the money he Avanted 
to attend to the salvation of my soul and grant 
me absolution from all my sins — that is his busi- 
ness. What more could I do?" I need scarcely 
add that my American friend did not become a 
Roman Catholic. 

The same reliance on the priest is the most 
marked characteristic in the spiritual life of every 
Roman Catholic throughout the world. '*]No 



FATnER O CONNOR S LETTERS 



priest, no sacrament," is literally true of that 
religion, and by the same logic of facts, "no sacra- 
ment, no salvation," is equally true. In the Ro- 
man Catholic Church the newborn child is in a 
state of original sin that can be washed out of the 
soul only by the priest baptizing it. Though it 
be only ten minutes old, it becomes a Christian as 
soon as the priest puts salt in its mouth, annoints 
it with oil, and sprinkles it with water. But, as 
years go on, more sins come to take the place of 
the original one, and the priest is again in request 
to have them wiped out by giving absolution 
after confession is made to him. This has to be 
repeated all one's life. A new sin every day or 
every week, or the old ones come back in a 
new dress, must be forgiven, and the priest is 
ever ready to i^erform the ceremony. The Church 
will curse any one who is not married by the 
priest. The priest is called into the chamber of 
the sick to prepare the soul for eternity, even be- 
fore the physician is summoned in many cases. 

When the Roman Catholic dies the priest is 
more necessary than ever, for he has the 
power of drawing the soul out of purgatory, and 
causing all the gates of heaven to fly open, pro- 
vided the friends of the deceased have money 
enough to pay for the job by getting masses said. 
It is a safe estimate to say that three-fourths of 
the Roman Catholic priests in America do not 
believe in these things any more than they 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 65 

believe they have the power to put horns on 
a refractory parishioner, or to change the bread 
and wine into the body and blood of Christ. But 
it is their profession to minister these things to 
the people who have been brought up in ignor- 
ance and superstition. A lawyer will take a fee 
from a client, though he knows the case will go 
against him. A physician will take his fee from 
a patient, though he knows that the pill or potion 
given is perfectly harmless ; so the priest will 
take money for masses for the living and the 
dead, and grant absolutions and indulgences, 
though he laughs in his sleeve at the credulity of 
the peofjle who believe that his power to do these 
things is from God. 

Take away the priest and the whole fabric of 
your church crumbles into pieces. Then the 
people who desire to serve God will learn that 
Christ is the great high priest who, "After he had 
offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at 
the right hand of God. . . . For by one offering he 
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." 
The influence that a good man who occu^^ies the 
position of a Roman Catholic priest may have 
among his people, I would not seek to destroy. 
But that he is deceiving them in the matter of 
their eternal salvation is phiin to every one who 
will read the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, 
from which I have quoted above. There are very 
few priests who are themselves deceived regard- 



56 FATHER O'CONXOR'S LETTERS 

ing this subject. The performance of the mass 
as a sacrifice for the living and the dead, the 
granting of absolution from sin, and the various 
benedictions they bestow so liberally, they re- 
gard in the light of mere professional duties. 
That is their business. But I am glad to say 
many of them are becoming ashamed of such 
professional work and are quitting the business. 
May A-lmighty God give them grace and strength 
to be true to the principles of honesty that every 
upright man feels within himself, and may the 
people Avho look upon them as their mediators with 
God be brought to the knowledge of the only 
mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen. 
Yours very truly, 

James A. O'Coni^or. 



LETTER XL 

Sir : — Time has corrected many mistakes of the 
past, and righted many wrongs, as is proved by 
the statue of Savonarola, the reformer, burned at 
the stake by Alexander VI., placed lately in the 
Hall of the Five Hundred at Florence. In the 
square before the Palace of the Signoria Savona- 
rola suffered martyrdom. Arnoldo da Brescia, 
the religious and political reformer^ who was 
burned at Rome, and whose ashes were thrown 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 57 

into the Tiber, has received the honor of a statue 
in his native city. 

At the unveiling of the statue there was great 
popular enthusiasm. The ministry was repre- 
sented by Signors Zanardelli, Baccarini, Baccelli, 
and Magliani. Deputations were present from 
the Senate and many other public bodies. 

Arnold of Brescia occupies a conspicuous plnce 
in history. He contended against the corruptions 
of your church in the early part of the twelfth 
century. He was the pupil of Abelard, whose 
romantic love for Heloise overshadows his strenu- 
ous opposition to Rome's doctrinal innovations. 
Arnold, in laying bare the corruptions of the 
Church of Rome, excited the wrath of the Pope 
and the doctors of theology. St. Bernard de- 
nounced him as a violent enemy of the church, 
yet the people gladly listened to him. His doc- 
trines exerted a powerful influence in Rome. An 
insurrection against the Papal power followed. 
Arnold exhorted the people to establish a repub- 
lican form of government. Pope Lucius II. 
opposed the demands of the populace for a 
reformation of the Church and State, and was 
killed during an insurrection in 1145. His suc- 
cessor, Pope Eugenius III., fled to France to 
escape a similar fate. 

The next Pope was Adrian IV., the Englishman 
who, in 11 50, by a bull, gave Henry 11. , King of 
England, authority over all Ireland and ordered 



58 FaTUER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

the inhabitants to obey him ; without a shadow of 
claim upon that island, for Ireland did not at that 
time acknowledge the Popes or bishops of Rome 
as their spiritual heads. The Church in Ireland 
had only one head, Jesus Christ. But this Eng- 
lish Pojje, who was said to be the illegitimate son 
of a priest, was resolved that he would rule with 
an iron hand. He refused to crown the Emperor 
Frederick I. unless Father Arnold, of Brescia, 
would be brought to punishment for raising his 
voice against the church, and the Emperor was 
the obedient slave of the Pope. Arnold was 
arrested tried, hanged, his body burned, and the 
ashes thrown into the Tiber by order of the Pope. 
Behold now how the Italian nation honors the 
achievments of those priests. Savonarola, like 
Arnold, sought to purify the church and 
deliver her from the horrible corruptions he 
saw in all ranks of the clergy from the Pope 
downwards. Other priests and reformers strove 
for the same result. 

They met their death like heroes, and their 
native land, rejoicing in its new-found freedom, 
honors them. It has been said that the blood of 
martyrs is the seed of the church. So the life 
and work and death of those priests have borne 
fruit in the religious and political freedom of 
their native land. They had no foreign foe to 
fight. They only sought to clean that which was 



TO CAF.DrXAL MCCLOSKEY. 50 

foul in your church, and they were killed for 
their endeavors to do so. 

I jjresume you and all other Roman Catholic 
priests would be glad to forget your historical 
studies about that Pope Alexander VI. As you 
know he was the father of six children by two 
concubines, before he became Pope. His son, 
Csesar Borgia, comes down to us in history as the 
type of cruelty, next to his father and the Em- 
peror Nero. Lucretia Borgia, the Pope's daugh- 
ter, was said to be living with her father as his 
wife. Alexander himself was poisoned by a cup 
of wine that he had prepared for one of liis Car- 
dinals. 

All this immorality and crime in your church 
occurred only a few years before Martin Luther 
appeared on the scene of the world's history. If 
he had remained in your church trying to "re- 
form" it he would have met the same fate as 
Savonarola and Arnold of Brescia. But the 
word of God told him he could not find sal- 
vation in your comm.union, and he came out of it- 
It is a grand testimony to Christian heroism to 
see those Italians whose fathers, years ago, 
burned at the stake those martyrs, erecting a 
monument to their memory, and glorifying the 
achievements of the reformers of past ages. Day 
by day Italy is becoming more free from Romish 
superstition, and when her people turn to the 



fJO FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

Gospel tliere will be no use for a pope in that 
beautiful land. 

Every American priest who has recently visited 
Rome linds that there is no faith among the 
priests. Everything that we were taught in our 
youth to regard as holy and sacred is laughed at 
by them. 

They have no faith. Transubstantiation is a 
meaningless word to them, so is the " Absolvo te " 
(I absolve thee) of confession. One of those 
Italian priests has been recently tried by an 
ecclesiastical court for changing the words in the 
administration of baptism. Instead of saying : 
^^ Baptizo te in nomine Patris et Fllii et Spiritus 
sancti,^^ (I baptize thee in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost), 
as he poured the water on the head of the child, 
he used the words: ^^ Baptizo te in nomine 
cliaboli,^^ (I baptize thee in the name of the 
devil.) 

One of the rules of your Church is that a priest 
must not say mass unless he is fasting. jS'o Ro- 
man Catholic would dare to take the communion 
after he had broken his fast. Yet the priests in 
Italy do not scruple to eat breakfast before they 
perform the ceremony. One of the most dis- 
tinguished young priests of Rhode Island called 
to see me recently. He sa'd he had lost all faith 
in the Catholic Church, after he had spent some 
years in Rome. He was secretary to one of your 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 61 

brother Cardinals, and one of his duties was to 
bring a cup of coffee and an egg every morning to 
his Eminence before he said mass. 

At this present writing considerable excitement 
exists in Milan, Italy, over the conduct of Fatlier 
Albertario in going to a restaurant and taking a 
cup of coffee before celebrating mass. Albertario 
says he will continue to drink his coffee, and does 
not propose to submit to any dictation about it. 
Already the clergy and populace of Milan are 
said to be divided into " Coffeeites" and '' Anti- 
Coffeeites." Father Albertario ought to be 
ashamed of himself ; he ought to take his coffee 
in his own house. 

Twenty years ago one who read the Bible in 
public in Rome would be consigned to the tender 
mercies of the Inquisition. At present there are 
twenty Protestant churches and schools in that 
city. In other large cities of Italy there are from 
three to five churches, and in almost every town 
the pure Gospel is preached. Every week we 
read of the conversion of priests not in Italy 
alone, but also in France, Germany, and even 
Spain. 

Here in America scores of priests have recently 
left your church and are drawing the peo])le 
after them by thousands and tens of thousands. 
Nnns are leaving their convents in large numbers, 
monks are quitting their monasteries, and many 
students for the i)riesthood in your seminaries 



C8 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

are abandcning tliem t very year to enter the min- 
istry of the Protestant churches. I have wel- 
comed a goodly number of them and helped them 
to learn to walk in the way of the Lord, as the 
Word of God directs us. If they come to you in 
their condition of doubt and helplessness, all you 
could say to them (allowing that you are a gen- 
tlemanly and good-natured man) is that they 
should hrst of all make confession of all their 
sins to you or to some other priest, and after re- 
ceiving absolution something might be done for 
them. But this is what they had been doing all 
their lives without any benefit to their souls. It 
is because your church had done nothing for 
their spiritual life that they have left it. 

This I have learned from all who have come to 
me, and it is confirmed not only hj my experi- 
ence but by testimony from all parts of the 
world. Take the case of Count Campello. While 
Canon of St. Peters Church in Rome, the most 
renowned building in the world, he was for years 
in communication with Rev. Dr. Leroy Vernon, 
the distinguished missionary of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in Italy, to learn the Bible side 
of Christianity against the Roman view of it, 
which he had thoroughly mastered. In our clas- 
sical schools we learned the old Latin maxim, 
''Magna est Veritas et prevalebit " (great is the 
truth and it shall prevail). It was my privilege 
to meet Rev Dr. Vernon in my church last year, 



I 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 63 

when he was in this country visiting the scenes 
of his youth, and I was not at all sarpiised that 
his conference with Count Campello and other 
priests in Rome should result in their conversion. 
When true ministers of Christ, devoted and self- 
sacrificing followers of the Saviour and his disci- 
ples, come in contact with the followers of the 
Pope, it must be expected that spiritually-minded 
priests will embrace the ijure Gospel presented to 
them. 

We are living in times of great moment to all 
thinking men. Cardinal, and as I respect your 
quiet disposition, I take pleasure in laying be- 
fore you some very plain facts regrading your 
tottering church. 

Father McFall, who has recf^ntly left your 
church, tells me hundreds of priests during the 
coming years will pluck up courage enough to 
speak out boldly and join us, as he has done. 
When he first thought of coming to me after 
learning that I was terribly in earnest in my 
efforts to rescue the priests and the people from 
superstition, he was so frightened at his daring 
attempt that he passed and repassed my humble 
residence several times before he had couraire to 
ring the bell. And after he had pulled it with a 
despairing effort he ran away as if the Old Harry 
was after him. 

But next day he came back, and when I ojHMied 
the door, he said, '' Are you Father O^Connor ? '' 



61 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

I said, ''Yes." " Well, I have come to see you 
to know if yon can do anything for my poor soul 
and body." I told him I could not, but I knew 
one who could help him if he was an honest, sin- 
cere man. " I am a priest," said he, "and I 
called to see you because you were also a priesr." 
The door of my heart and the door of my room 
were immediately opened to him. More than a 
dozen priests and students have come to me in a 
similar manner during the last two years. They 
all now give thanks to God for the tranquility of 
soul they enjoy. They know they can com- 
mune with their Saviour Jesus Christ without 
asking permission of you or the Pope. The Bible 
is their guide, and the love of Christ their 
strength in all the trials that may come upon 
them for his sake. Praying the same blessing 
for you, I am, very truly yours, 

James A. O'Coititor. 



LETTER XII. 

Sir: — Next to Almighty God, the Virgin Mary, 
in your church, is the most conspicuous and pow- 
erful of all heavenly beings. By a strange freak 
of superstition, she has been put in the place of 
Jesus as the mediator between God and man. 
Nearly every Roman Catholic wears the scapular 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 65 

in her honor, and all devoutly pray to her when- 
ever they are impelled to ask special favors from 
heaven. 

Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the only 
mediator. All Protestants know this ; but Ro- 
man Catholics do not know it, because they do 
not read the Bible. In every Roman Catholic 
church an altar is specially dedicated to her, and 
over it is usually a statue representing a beautiful 
woman. A gilded crown and a mantle of lace 
embellish the cold marble features that the people 
look upon with so much reverence. Intelligent 
Roman Catholics feel very sore when taunted with 
the worship of Mary. They deny it and say they 
only ask her to intercede with God for them. 
They imagine she has nothing else to do but to 
present to the Almighty the prayers they so 
glibly utter before her statue or picture. The 
language of eulogy fails to describe the titles your 
church has imposed upon the Virgin Mary. She 
is the '^mother of God," the " queen of heaven," 
the ''refuge of sinners," etc., etc. 

But " Holy Mary, Mother of God," is her chief 
title. I have often wondered why it is that as 
your church gave Almighty God a mother yon 
did not also give him a grandmother, cousins, 
uncles and aunts. 

How Romanism is permeated by the supersti- 
tions and forms of paganism may be seen by com- 
paring the teachings of Jesus in regard to i^rayer 



60 FATHER O'CONNOK'S I.ETTETIS 

with the teachings of your church on the same 
subject. One of Father Hecker's associates 
preaching recently in his church in this city said, 
as reported in all the Catholic papers : ''Of all 
the devotions in use in the church, the rosary, or 
beads, is perhaps the most salutary and indis- 
pensable. Let such of you then, my brethren, as 
have neglected it, make up for your neglect with- 
out delay. Do not make the foolish excuse that 
you can read. Our Holy Father, the Pope, can 
read ; but he says his beads. So do your bishops 
and priests. Follow, then, their example. Get 
a set of beads at once for yourself, and have them 
blessed for yourself, so that you may receive the 
indulgences attached to them, which you will not 
have by borrowing other people's. Then say 
them every day, if you have time, or at least as 
often as you can. You can do nothing in the way 
of prayer more acceijtable to God, or more effica- 
cious to obtain grace for yourself and others." 
What a rogue that priest is. He knows he is de- 
ceiving the poor Irish Catholics who believe such 
nonsense. God forgive him for not telling them 
to pray to Jesus. Saying the beads is a purely 
mechanical operation of running the little beads 
that make up the rosary through the fingers and 
repeating '' one our Father and ten Hail Marys " 
until all the decades are completed. Among the 
happy memories of my seminary life at Baltimore 
is the recitation of ''the beads" in the garden 



TO CARDINAL MCCI.OSKEY. CT 

just before the spiritual exercises that preceded 
supper. In winter, we said the beads in the 
prayer hall, but when the pleasant spring-time 
came, we adjourned to the garden, and, while 
walking up and down the broad avenue, repeated 
our beads mechanically, thinking very little 
about the prayers we mumbled to the Virgin 
Mary, but a great deal about the new life that we 
saw coming into existence in tree and shrub and 
cosy birds' nests. Still the Virgin Mary was the 
central point of our devotions during those walks, 
as she is at all times the pivot on which the 
prayers of Roman Catholics everywhere turn. 

Who is the Virgin Mary — this central ligure to 
which all Roman Catholics direct their devotional 
gaze ? In the first chapter of the gospel accord- 
ing to St. Luke we have a history of the part that 
Mary took in the incarnation of the Son of God. 
She was the wife of a man named Joseph, a sim- 
ple-minded, honest carpenter. While he was at 
work one day the angel Gabriel called at his 
house and said to his wife, "Hail, thou art highly 
favored, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou 
among women " (In the Roman Catholic prayer 
it is, "Hail, Mary, full of grace," etc.) She 
heard the salutation incredulously, and when she 
was assured it was no dream, but a real message 
from God, she gave utterance to that glorious 
" magnificat : " " My soul doth magnify the 
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 



68 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

Saviour. He bath regarded the low estate of his 
handmaiden ; for, behold, from henceforth all 
generations shall call me blessed." When she 
showed signs of child-bearing her husband, Jo- 
seph, became jealous. But he was appeased and 
the child was born in Bethlehem. Mary treasured 
in her heart all the things that happened, and 
took good care of the child. When he was tvvelve 
years old Joseph and Mary took him to the tem- 
ple in Jerusalem according to the custom of the 
Jews, and when he tarried there after they had 
set out for home they returned to look for him, 
and found him in the temple teaching the doc- 
tors. From the gospel record we know that 
Jesus lived with Joseph and Mary in their hum- 
ble home in Nazareth, ''growing in wisdom and 
stature." Next we see Mary at the marriage in 
Cana, seeking to direct him, and receiving this 
remarkable answer: " Woman, what have I to do 
with thee ?" Again, when it was told to him, 
while preaching to the people, that his mother 
and his brethren desired to speak with him, he 
paid no attention to her, saying, ''Who is my 
mother ?. . . . And he stretched forth his hand to- 
ward his disciples, and said. Behold my mother 
and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will 
of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my 
brother, and sister, and mother." (Matt, xii., 
48-50.) Mary appears again at the foot of the 
Cross, and for the last time her name is mention- 



TO CARDINAL McCLOSKET. 69 

ed in tlie first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, 
wherein she is represented to us as being engaged 
in prayer with the other women and the disci- 
ples. 

This is the history of the Virgin Mary, a 
woman beloved of God as many other women 
have been, faithful and true in the discharge of 
her duties, caring for her son as every mother does 
for her child, serving the Lord in her humble 
sphere, a model for all women. Yet what a 
heroine your church makes of her. 

You tell the Roman Catholic people that she 
was taken up into heaven on a certain day, but 
you do not specify in what year. There is no 
other authority for the statement that she was 
carried aloft by angels than the word of a Pope, 
who, being 'infallible," of course knows more 
about heaven and the way to get there than the 
inspired writers of the sacred scriptures. It is 
needless to add that the Bible tells us nothing 
about the assumption of Mary into heaven. 

Yet you call upon the people to observe the 
day as a holiday of obligation the same as Sun- 
day. They must go to mass, and refrain from 
work of all kind, except rum-selling. Tliey must 
pray to Mary with unusual devotion to gain the 
indulgences that various Popes have attached to 
her feast. Novenas, or nine days special jirayers, 
are previously offered to her, particularly by 
young maidens who seek her patronage. Some 



70 FATHER O'CONKOR'8 LETTERS 

of them ask her for good husbands, and others 
ask that they may be married soon to any kind 
of a husband. All, young and old, men and 
women, have some special favor to ask of Mary 
on this day. I doubt not but some of the saloon- 
keepers pray to her for an increase of business on 
the glorious feast of her assumption. It is a day 
of pic-nics with the various societies, sodalities 
and confraternities of every Roman Catholic 
church. The Redeemer is dragged in as a snbor^ 
dinate figure in the celebration. The tragedy 
of Calvary is supposed to be repeated in the mass 
in order that the glories of Mary may appear 
more conspicuous. Shame on your church, Cardi- 
nal, thus to make a mockery of sacred things. 
Mary had her place on earth as the mother of the 
humanity of Jesus, and his faithful follower. 
But the Lord Jesus is alone the being to whom 
Christians ought to pray, and when you cause 
sinners to turn aside from him and pray to some 
other person or thing, you are no better than an 
idolator. 

Those who say they do not worship Mary, daily 
repeat the prayer called ''Salve Regina." I 
translate it out of my Latin breviary, though it is 
to be found in all Catholic prayer-books, and 
there are special indulgences for every one who 
devoutly says it. When you read it, I presume 
you will get one of those indulgences. If there 
be any good in them it is a charitable act to pass 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 71 

them around, and so I give all who care for snch 
things an opportunity of gaining as much indul- 
gence as they wish. 

Our Saviour said, when men pray it should be 
to ''Our Father,'' but your church says prayer 
must be also offered in this wise : 

^'Hail, Holy Queen! Mother of Mercy, our 
life, our sweetness and our hope ! To thee do 
we cry, poor, banished children of Eve. To thee 
do we send up our sighs, mournings and weepings 
In this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious 
advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and 
after this our exile is ended, show unto us the 
precious fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, 
O pious, O sweet Virgin Mary ! Pray for us, 
O holy mother of God, that we may be 
made worthy of the promises of Christ." 

That prayer needs no comment. If you can 
find your way to heaven by such means, I have 
no objection. But I ask the Roman Catholic 
people to judge for themselves whether it is bet- 
ter for them to pray to Mary or to Jesus. 
Yours truly, 

James A. O'Connob. 



72 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 



Letter Xin. 

Sir: — The great majority of the members of 
your churcli have very little respect for the Bible. 
They consider it something dangerous to handle, 
as if it were a spiritual torpedo. I have heard 
old Father Damen, the Jesuit of Chicago, roar 
out denunciations against it until the walls of the 
great Jesuit Church in that city rang again and 
again. Since the Reformation millions of copies 
of it have been burned by the authorities of your 
church, and if you had your wish to-day I doubt 
not you would rejoice to see all the Bibles in the 
world destroyed in the flames. It is a book full 
of dangers to your church. The ignorant Irish 
and German priests in America (and there are 
many such) are affected by a sight of it in much 
the same manner that a red rag affects a mad 
bull. American priests are more liberal, and 
some of them believe it to be the revealed word of 
God. 

Tradition has brought to our knowledge other 
information concerning God that is not found in 
the bible, and your church says we must believe 
this also. Passing that by for the present, let us 
open it at the first chapter of Isaiah and read the 
eighteenth verse : " Come now, and let us reason 
together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 73 



iscarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
You believe that this great prophet was in- 
spired by Almighty God, and that what he says 
so plainly is as clear to our understanding as if 
God had spoken the words directly to you or me. 
Then it is only a question of how this wonderful 
cleansing of the soul can be accomplished. The 
condition attached is, ''if ye be willing and 
obedient." No one knows better than I do that 
the great mass of Roman Catholics are willing 
and anxious to have their sins forgiven. During 
the years I officiated as a priest of your church, I 
heard not less than 50,000 confessions of men, 
women and children, and every one of those came 
to me with a sincere desire to have their sins for- 
given by me as the agent or instrument of God. 
They did not know whether I pronounced the 
words of absolution or not, because I spoke them 
in Latin ; they had to rely on my good Avill. 
Without egotism, I may say that I acted honestlj^ 
and in good faith with all who came to me, 
and pronounced the words of absolution and gave 
the proper advice to each person in due form. 
But I have known priests who did not do this, 
because they had no faith in confession or absolu- 
tion. One such priest told me in the presence of 
many persons that for seven years he never pro- 
nounced the words of consecration at the mass or 
the words of absolution over the penitent at con- 



74 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

fession. So that of the thousands who knelt to 
him in all these years, not one received the for- 
giveness of their sins, even according to your 
method of forgiving them. 

But assuming that you and all your priests are 
as zealous and conscientious as I tried to be, and 
I know many priests who are, it is important for 
all of us to know how the words of the Lord 
quoted above can be applied as medicine to our 
souls. How can our souls made scarlet by sin be- 
come white as snow — how can the crimson stain 
be washed out of them ? Surely no greater boon 
could be conferred on man than this, that all the 
evil he has done in the course of his life by 
thought, word and deed should be blotted out 
and forgiven as if he had never sinned. How the 
soul of the Psalmist yearned for this great bless- 
ing ! (Psalm li.) '' Have mercy upon me, O God, 
according to thy loving kindness ; according to 
the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my 
transgressions. I acknowledge my transgressions, 
and my sin is ever before me. Purge me with 
hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I 
shall be whiter than snow. Hide thy face from 
my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create 
in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit with- 
in me. Cast me not aAvay from thy presence ; 
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore 
unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me 



TO CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 75 

with thy free Spirit A broken and con- 
trite heart, God, thou wilt not despise." 

You believe that this cry of David was heard 
by the merciful God whom he addressed. Every 
soul is precious in the sight of God, and if the 
most hard-working Irishman, or the most bloated 
rum-seller in New York, were to cry unto the 
Lord and repent as sincerely as David did, the 
same mercy would be extended to him. 

While I admit that Roman Catholics are anx- 
ious to obtain forgiveness of their sins, my 
knowledge of the word of God and my experience 
as a priest have taught me that they do not take 
the right way to gain it. They know that God 
can forgive them, and the expression, '' God for- 
give me," is frequently used by them when tiiey 
do or say what they think is sinful. It is a rev- 
erent expression and is pregnant with meaning 
to the true Christian. But to the average Roman 
Catholic it implies no more than the hope that God 
will wink at the trifling fault or "venial sin" 
they ask pardon for in that way. Great big 
sins must be forgiven in another way. The 
''scarlet sins" and the "sins red as crimson" 
must be forgiven otherwise than by a direct ap- 
peal to God alone. When a Protestant realizes 
that he has violated the commandments of God, 
and is thereby a sinner, he throws himself on his 
heavenly Father's mercy and asks pardon through 
the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, "whose 



7G FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

blood cleanseth from all sin." Our good God has 
in this way made provision for receiving into his 
favor the repentant sinner who comes to him by 
faith in Christ and by ceasing to do evil. There 
must be the consciousness of sin ; the Decalogue 
tells him what sin is, and his own conscience 
must cry out against him. There must be re- 
pentance, true and sincere repentance, a sorrow 
of the soul for having offended God, and a hatred 
for the things that caused his indulgence in sin. 
How forcibly Mr. Moody expresses this when he 
says that repentance is turning around, ''right 
about face," from sin to God. There must be an 
abiding faith in Christ the Redeemer, that ''he 
is able to save them to the uttermost that come 
unto God by him, seeing he ever livetli to make 
intercession for them." Temptations to sin will 
present themselves to one with such faith, but he 
believes with the Apostle Jude, who says, "God 
our Saviour is able to keep you from falling, and 
present you faultless before the presence of his 
glory with exceeding joy." This is the case of 
the Christian who is willing and obedient to 
serve the Lord and not be the slave of sin. " Be- 
ing justified by faith, he has peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

When a Roman Catholic is conscious of sin he 
feels dreadfully bad over it, so bad indeed 
that he cannot keep the knowledge to him- 
self, but must tell some one about it, God pity 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 77 

him! lie does not know, unlike the Christian who 
reads his bible, that he can tell his heavenly- 
Father about his state, and relying on the merits 
of Christ obtain his forgiveness. Though he has 
faith in God and in the redeeming power of the 
sacrifice on Calvary, he does not know that he 
can, like the Prodigal, rise up and go to his 
Father. Your church has never taught him that 
he can go directly to God with his sin-laden soul 
and be cleansed, and he does not know that tlie 
Bible will teach him this as the only sure way of 
getting forgiveness. He considers his way of life 
and perceives that he is a sinner, perhaps not 
so bad as others whom he knows, but still 
^' a pretty bad sinner," to use his own expression. 
What is he to do? Your church has marked 
out a way for him. He has no Bible, or if 
he has one he never uses it. But he has several 
books of devotion or prayer-books. In the 
use of these books he is not unlike the sailor who 
had the ten commandments, neatly printed and 
framed, hung up on shipboard, and used to say 
with great complacency, when turning in to 
sleep, ''Lord, them's my sentiments." It is well 
for the Roman Catholic that he has the devotion 
and prayers somewhere, even bound up in a book, 
if he has them not in his heart. 

The idea of God instilled into his mind by the 
teachings of your church is, that he is so tierce 
and vindictive no one dare approach him in ti 



78 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

direct manner. In the prayer-books and in your 
preaching he is often compared to a mighty mon- 
arch who rules over a great kingdom. The com- 
mon people cannot come near such a king ; they 
must have recourse to some one near the throne 
who has influence at court ; and even to reach this 
latter person intercession must be made with the 
humbler satellites. This is a fixed idea in the 
mind of the Roman Catholic concerning God. 
Accordingly the Virgin Mary, St. Patrick, St. 
Bridget, and the thousand and one '' Saints" of 
your Church are invoked by him to intercede with 
the Almighty. Long and elaborate prayers to 
these " Saints" are prescribed for him to use be- 
fore he goes to confession, and even when he be- 
gins his examination of conscience. This exam- 
ination is long or short, according to the length of 
time the person has been away from confession. 
The way in which confession is made, and the 
process of examination, I give from my experience 
and from the authorized books of devotion that 
all Roman Catholics use. My Christian readers 
can verify what T say by borrowing a prayer- 
book from any of their Catholic acquaintances. 
You and my Roman Catholic brethren know well 
that what I say is literally true. 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'CoifNOR. 



TO CAllDINAL MCCLOSKET. 



LETTER XIV 



Sib -—In my last letter 1 poiuted out the Scrip- 
tural way of salvation by faith in Christ and 
how by repentance and regeneration that taitn 
becomes practical in the daily life of every Chris- 

^^In this I will give the Roman Catholic way of 
salvation. It is of a complex nature, but I shall 
try to disentangle it for the edification of the 
people The Roman Catholic who desires to be 
saved from sin proceeds in this wise: He exam- 
ines his conscience on the ten commandments ot 
God and the six commandments or precepts ot 
the Church. These are presented to him m the 
catechism and prayer-books. He is told that he 
sins against the first commandment by going to a 
Protestant church or uniting in prayer with any 
TDerson who is not a Roman Catholic ; by doubt- 
fng any doctrine that the Church of Rome 
teaches, even though the Bible should teach the 
contrary ; by reading anything that may lead to 
such doubt. These are called sins against taitn. 
He sins against hope by not having confidence in 
God's mercy, or by foolishly expecting salvation 
by any other means than such as your church 
holds out to him. He sins against charity by not 
loving God above all things, and his neighbor as 



60 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

himself. Every priest knows how many of these 
sins his penitents commit. They read things that 
call into question the infallibility of your 
church ; many of them occasionally go to Pro- 
testant churches ; few of them love God with sin- 
cerity of heart, and all of them, with you at their 
head, hate me and my brethren who have left 
their church, and every Protestant who raises 
his voice against it, with a hatred that can be 
paralleled only in the breasts of demons. 

The second commandment of the Decalogue is 
altogether omitted in the Roman Catholic manu- 
als, thus mutilating the commandments of the 
Lord that were given to the people amid the 
thunderings and the lightnings of Mount Sinai, 
because it says, " Thou shalt not make unto thee 
any graven image, or any likeness of anything 
that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth 
beneath ; thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am 
a jealous God." The images and statues of the 
Virgin Mary and the saints, with the crosses, 
medals, and pictures that adorn the walls, would 
quickly disappear if you dared to write this com- 
mandment over the doors of your churches. But 
rather than give up your idols, you set at nought 
the word of God. Remember, however, that he 
is a jealous God, who will punish those that bow 
down and worship or pray to anything but him- 
self. The penalty of mutilating or distorting the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 81 

word of God is a terrible one : ''If any man shall 
take away from the words of the Book of this 
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of 
the book of life, and out of the holy city, and 
from the things which are written in this Book.'' 
(Rev. 22, 19;) As the Roman Catholics learn to 
use the Bible and depend on it for the knowledge 
of God and the way of salvation, they will not 
incur this penalty, but leave your Church in 
greater numbers than they are doing now. Your 
church makes the third commandment the 
second in your list. The Roman Catholic sins 
against it by taking the name of God in vain, by 
blasphemy, cursing and swearing. What a 
memory he must have to recollect the hundreds 
of curses and blasphemies he utters between con- 
fessions ! There is not a rum-shop kept by the 
members of your church that does not reek with 
foulness of language of this nature. The next 
commandment, to keep holy the Sabbath day, is 
observed by them if they go to mass. That is all 
that is required. In all large cities the custom 
with many is to turn into the grog-shop immedi- 
ately after leaving the church. Pic-nics, excur- 
sions, and processions are the commonest fea- 
tures of the observance of the day by them. 
The principal sin against the next commandment 
is not to obey the Pope and the priest. Parents 
may be slighted, children neglected, the officers 
and laws of the State contemned — these are 



82 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

trifling faults compared with the sin of disobey- 
ing the priest. Quarrelling, fighting, anger, ha- 
tred and getting drunk, are sins against the com- 
mand not to kill. All the whiskey-shops in 
Ireland and ninety-nine per cent, of those in this 
country are owned by Catholics, and their patrons 
are mostly of the same faith. Here are sins and 
causes of sins without number that must trouble 
the soul of him who makes a conscientious ex- 
amination of conscience. 

The thoughts, words and actions against chas- 
tity that your church requires her followers to 
confess I must not touch upon. The souls of 
many priests and penitents, especially young 
females, are ruined daily by the filthy language 
that i:)asses between them. The young priest 
feels the flush of shame mounting to his cheeks 
as he hears some young female pouring into his 
ear things that should not be mentioned, and that 
she would never have thought of if they had not 
been suggested to her by the foul imaginations of 
the writers of your books. And the case is 
worse, if possible, in the confession of married 
persons. No one dares to translate into English 
the language used by your church in the text-* 
books on this subject. 

It is a sin to steal. But in the case of Catholic 
servant-girls who live in Protestant families, if 
they get plenty of masses said, and are generous 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 



to the priests and to all chnrcli purposes, that 
commandment can be easily satisfied. 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor" would be a great stumbling block in 
the way of your church and people if there were 
not another commandment, of the Jesuits' mak- 
ing, to take its place — ''The end justifies the 
means." Last spring one of your priests, Father 
Fitzimmons, of Dansville, N. Y., wrote a letter 
to the local paper in which he said that I never 
was a priest, that I was a very wicked man, bad 
enough even to throttle his holiness the Pope, 
etc. I replied telling priest Fitzimmons that I 
had been a priest, that I was not so very wicked 
as to choke the Pope, even if I had a chance to 
do so, and calling on him to make reparation for 
bearing false witness against the neighbor. He 
has not done so; and no Roman Catholic ever 
will retract a lie about an enemy. In the Cath- 
olic catechism most generally used in France, and 
approved by the bishops and priests, the follow- 
ing questions and answers have a conspicuous 
place : 

''Q. — Who was Luther? A. — Luther was an 
Augustine monk in Germany, who apostatized, 
married a nun, and set himself to declaim against 
the Catholic Church. After leading a scandalous 
life, he died on rising from a meal where he had, 
as usual, gorged himself with wine and food. 

"Q. — Who was Calviu ? A.— Calvin was a 



84 FATHER 0*C0NT70K*S LETTERS 

priest of Noyon. He adopted Luther's errors, 
added Ws own, went and settled at Geneva, where 
he burnt Michael Servetus, who had ventured to 
contradict him, and he himself died of a shameful 
disease/' 

Such shameless and shameful falsifications of 
truth and history, it has been well said, would be 
impossible except in schools under Romanist and 
Jesuit control. 

To make up for the omission of the second 
commandment, the Roman Church divides the 
tenth into two. The ninth commandment of that 
church says, ''Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
bor's wife," and the tenth, "Thou shalt not covet 
thy neighbor's goods." Now the last command- 
ment given by Almighty God to Moses reads^ 
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, 
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his 
man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, 
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." 

Having examined his conscience regarding the 
sins he committed against these commandments, 
mutilated and distorted even as they are by your 
church, the Roman Catholic next proceeds to 
arraign himself on the commandments and pre- 
cepts of the Church. They are six, and are of 
equal force with the Decalogue, if not greater. 
The first is to hear mass on Sundays and all holi- 
days of "obligation." The Lord says, "Keep 
the Sabbath day holy," and you add that the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 85 

obligation is best fulfilled by observing the priest 
saying mass, nothing more. It is a fact that nine- 
tenths of the Roman Catholics in this and other 
large cities never hear a sermon during the year. 
There are five or six masses in each of your 
churches every Sunday morning, but the only one 
at which there is any preaching is the last or 
grand high mass. The workingmen and their 
families and all the young people go to the early 
masses, at which there is not a word spoken by 
the priest except the Latin words of the liturgy. 
No wonder that religion has no influence on their 
lives. 

The second precept of the church is ^^ To fast 
and abstain on the days commanded." Rarely 
will an Irishman break this commandment. He 
may swear and blaspheme, and get drunk and 
cheat without stint ; but he will not dare to eat 
meat on Friday. 

The third precept is *^to confess your sins at 
least once a year." The fourth is '' to receive the 
blessed Eucharist at Easter." The fifth, ''to con- 
tribute to the support of the pastors ; and a very 
potent influence is this commandment, in the 
hands of every priest. Woe to theluckle:?^ wight 
who does not pay the priest his regular dues for 
marriages, baptisms, masses, etc. He may obtain 
mercy from God for having oft'ended him, but can 
expect no mercy from his reverence. 

The sixth precept is ' ' Not to solemnize marriage 



86 FATHER O'CONNOR'3 LETPEIIS 

at the forbidden times, nor within the forbidden 
degrees of kindred." But if one can pay for a 
''dispensation" he can marry when he pleases, 
and I verily believe if a man be very wealthy and 
make a rich offering to the Pope he can obtain a 
dispensation to marry his grandmother. In 
March last a naval officer called on me to be mar- 
ried. He and the lady were Catholics. He had 
been to see you, and your secretary, Father Far- 
ley, said he could not be married then as it was 
Lent. The gentleman said he had to go to sea in 
a few days, and as he could not wait he desired 
to know if there was no provision made for such 
a case in the rules of the Church. The answer 
was that if he would pay $50 for a dispensation 
he could be married. He considered this extor- 
tion, and told Father Farley so. This is only one 
of many similar cases that have come to me. 

Very truly yours, 

James A. O'Connob. 



LETTER XV. 

Sib : — Our Roman Catholic friend, haring ex- 
amined his conscience on the commandments and 
precepts and on the seven deadly sins, is prepared 
to go to the priest and confess them all. You 
may be sure he is sorry for them and sorry for 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKET. 87 

himself at the prospect of the ordeal he has to 
UDdergo. The fear of the priest is much more 
vividly before hi^ mind than the fear of God. 
He thinks the Almighty is far away, but the 
priest is right there in that dark confessional box 
and the heart quakes at what the man with such 
terrible power may say or do. He may scold 
loud enough to be heard by the other waiting 
penitents ; he may impose a hard penance, or he 
may refuse absolution altogether. It is told of a 
frontiersman who was about to get married that 
he went to confession to a priest, and as he with- 
drew he saw the lady entering the box at the 
other side. Not knowing what the rules of the 
confessional were, he turned back to the priest 
and said, " See here, old chap, don't tell that girl 
what I told you, or the coroner will have a job 
round this way." All Catholics have not the 
courage to say this to their priests. They ap- 
proach him with fear and trembling. Great is 
the power of God, but greater is the power of the 
priest in the confessional. 

One day, in Chicago, during my priestly life in 
that city, I noticed a party of strangers looking 
at the pictures and other articles of furniture in 
the church. I offered my services as guide to 
show them whatever was of interest in the build- 
ing. After examining the vestments, missals and 
other things, one lady asked for what purpose 
were the black-looking sentry boxes arranged 



83 FATHZE O'CONNOR'S LETTEBS 

along the sides of the church ? I replied that 
they were the confessionals. 

**0h," said she, "is that where confession is 
made ?" I answered in the affirmative. 

'* Could you please tell me," she inquired, 
how it is done ?" 

I said the best way to get the information she 
sought would be for her to enter the confessional 
at the penitent's side, and kneel down there, 
while I would sit in the priest's place. 

This we did, while her friends stood around 
deeply interested. 

The confessional in all churches is so arranged 
that there is a grating with a slide between the 
priest and penitent. It was very dark in there as 
I sat down. The slide covered the gi^ating. I 
drew it aside very gently, and as I did so, I could 
hear the quick and nervous breathing of the lady 
at the other side. For a few minutes there was 
the stillness almost of death. Then I suddenly 
whispered in the lady's ear — ''!N"ow tell me all 
your sins." 

''No, no, no," she screamed, as she ran out, 
*^not for all the world." 

Her friends were alarmed, as they received her 
with blanched face and trembling all over. I as- 
sured them no harm had been done ; but she said 
she was never more frightened in her life. 
"During the few minutes I remained in that dis- 
mal box," said she, " all I had ever heard about 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 89 

the darkness of sin, and the horrors of the lower 
regions came vividly to my mind ; I think I 
V7ou]d have died if I was detained there another 
minute." 

She could not be induced to join in the laughter 
that followed. '' It is no joke for a lady to kneel 
down to a man in a place like that and be asked 
to tell everything that one thinks a sin," she 
said. I explained that a priest is in the confes- 
sional as a representative of Grod, and telling her 
sins to him was the same as if she told them to 
God. '' That may be your view of it," said she, 
*'but I did not look at it in that way. I saw you 
going into the box and I knew you were a man. 
Perhaps if you were an old man I would not so 
much care, but to tell my sins to a young man is 
what I never will do." 

This lady was not a Roman Catholic, or she 
would know that the duty of hearing confessions 
falls chiefly on young priests. One reason is that 
the hearing of confessions is the most arduous 
and disagreeable duty a priest has to perform. Old 
priests avoid it as much as possible. Another 
reason is that Roman Catholic women, especially 
the young ones, like best to go to young priests. 

I have heard thousands upon thousands of con- 
fessions during the years of my priesthood, and I 
tell you, Cardinal, I want to hear no more of 
them. They are all now in the tomb of memory, 
and I do not care to recall them. Would to 



90 FATHER 0*C0NN0R'B LETTKB8 

God that the people who knelt to me, with full 
faith in my power of absolving them, had con- 
fessed to their heavenly Father and repented : 
they would be sure of his forgiveness, and would 
be happy in the assurance that the blood of 
Christ had washed away all their sins. 

I have spoken of the laborious duty imposed 
on a priest in hearing confessions. For many 
years I had to sit in the confessional daily for 
hours, and sometimes on Saturdays for as many 
as twelve hours, hearing the sorrowful tales of 
passion and crime that agitate the human heart. 
It was weary work for body and mind, and many 
times have I wished to be delivered from it. Yet 
I can give thanks to my heavenly Father that ] 
fulfilled my duty, such as I conceived it to be, as 
faithfully as I knew how. No one ever knelt to 
me in confession that I did not try to make better 
with such counsel and direction as I thought best 
suited to each case. 

This I learned to do from my own confessor in 
the seminary in Baltimore. Though he and I are 
now separated by a great gulf, my heart goes out 
to him in love and thankfulness for his efforts to 
make me a good Christian and a good priest. I 
tried to be both. You will say I failed in the 
latter. I don't know about that ; but certainly I 
failed in making myself a Christian. It was only 
after many years, and not until I left your 
church, that I gave up the attempt. 






TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 01 



It takes time for one who has been reared a Ro- 
man Catholic and educated as a priest to learn 
the way of salvation. How to become a Christian 
may seem plain to those who have the word of 
God in their hands from their yonth, and who 
know they have free access to their God through 
his Son, who "has reconciled the world unto 
himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
them." 

I did not give up my efforts to make myself 
a Christian until I learned that my Redeemer 
alone could do that for me, and had done it by 
dying for me. I had but to believe this. That 
may seem easy to do, but it was not so to me ; 
the whole course of my life had to be changed. 
There was to be for me no more sinning and re- 
penting alternately. My Saviour held out to me 
the promise of salvation if I would accept it by 
faith in him. I know he will not break his 
promise to forgive me my sins, to abide in me, 
and to keep me in his love, and by his grace pre- 
serve me while I trust in his mercy and faithfully 
serve him. 

But while I am giving this testimony our 
Roman Catholic friend is beginning his confes- 
sion to the priest. 

Having knelt down in the dark box, he says : 
** Bless me. Father, for I have sinned." And 
then he goes on to say the " Confiteor :^ " I con- 
fess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever 



93 FATHER O'COXNOR'8 LETTERS 

Virgin, to blessed Michael, the Archangel, to 
blessed John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, and all 
the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in 
thought, word and deed through my fault, through 
my grievous, great fault." Here he hits his breast 
three blows with his clenched hand, the harder 
the better, and pauses for the priest to 
ask him, "When w^ere you at confession last?" 
The answer is given, and the priest says, ' ' Now, 
what have you done since then ? " The old Irish 
Catholic women will usually answer this question 
by giving a little groan and saying, ''Musha, I 
did many things, your reverence." 

'' What are they ?" he asks a little impatiently. 

"Well, I can't remember them all, for I know 
I'm a great sinner, but I'll tell as many as I can re- 
collect, and, dear knows, that's a list long enough. 
Sure, your reverence, my old man is the principal 
cause of all my sins, but for him I'd be all right. 
Sometimes you know he takes a drop too much, 
and then he is as bad as old Nick himself." 

"But see here," the priest breaks in, "lam 
not hearing your husband's confession, but 
yours; tell me your own sins, and don't mind 
those of your husband." 

"Yes, your reverence, but sure he's the cause of 
all my sins, and if you could get him to stop his 
ways I would " 

Again the priest must interrupt her, and en- 
deavor to keep her to the recital of her own 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 9S 

transgressions. Unless he is experienced in the 
management of old ladies he has to submit to the 
infliction until the sins of half the people in the 
parish are poured into his ear. While willing to 
iell all they remember, some penitents use a good 
deal of ingenuity in their efforts to soften the 
wrong-doing or to escape its penalty. Some in- 
stances of this kind come to my mind now, but I 
shall reserve them for your perusal until my next 
letter. In all the doctrines of the Roman Church, 
there is none of so great importance as that of 
confession. It is the arch on which the whole 
structure of Romanism is built. Take away 
auricular confession and the priests' occupation 
is gone. If they continue in the ministry they 
will be like all other ministers, — preachers of the 
word of God and exemplars of the teachings of 
the gospel of Christ. 

A young Irish - American, in Fort Madison, 
Iowa, thinks that taking souls out of purgatory 
IS the principal occupation of priests ; at least he 
says it was so in Hartford, Conn., when he was a 
Roman Catholic there a few years ago. 

In proof of this he sent me a poem he composed 
on the subject. I regret tliac on account of tlie 
length of this letter I cannot give you more than 
a few stanzas of it. In his letter to me he says 
he recited the poem on thanksgiving day some 
years ago and was mobl)ed by the crowd of Irisli 
Catholics that gathered around him. '^I'lit for 



94 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERB 

the timely interference of some Americans and 
Englislimen present," lie says, '' it is probable I 
would have been killed and thus unable to write 
any more poetry." 

When the Lord had built His high abode, 

He called it Heaven — the dwelling place of God. 

When the rebel angels fought and fell, 

He doomed them to a second place called helL 

These are recorded in Sacred Story, 
But not one word of Purgatory — 
A place that to the priest is known, 
And to none else ; — 'tis all his own ; 

For Peter gave to him the key, 
That he may get the jailor's fee 
And send the soul to hell or Heaven, 
Just as the gold is kept or given. 

You may also wish to encompass his death 
when you read it, Cardinal, 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'Connoe. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKT. 95 



LETTER XVL 

Sib : The methods pursued by penitents in con- 
fessing their sins differ according to the nature of 
the offences and the age of the persons. Those 
of mature years bluntly tell out whatever they 
have done that they consider sinful, and if the 
faults or crimes are old acquaintances that have 
been repeatedly confessed and repented of, but 
still maintain their ground, some extenuating 
circumstance is sure to be thrown in. 

There must be no false delicacy even in the case 
of young girls who are ignorant in many things 
that are referred to in the examination of con- 
science. In the case of young females it has been 
said that ignorance of those things is a great part 
of innocence. Every priest knows that the prac- 
tice of confession is injurious to the purity of 
mind of the confessor and his fair penitent. 
Those who think that there are safeguards in the 
confessional that would prevent any thought of 
love between them have no experience of the 
dangers of such intimate intercourse. What a 
young girl would shrink from telling even to a 
companion of her own sex she must not hesitate 
to disclose to the priest with all the attendant 
circumstances. When priests meet for social en- 



00 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

joyment the conversation often turns on the 
queer things that girls say in confession. If a 
young lady thinks a, priest good looking and 
would like to marry him, if it were possible, she 
must tell him so, and if she be richly endowed 
by nature and fortune his feelings at hearing 
silch an avowal can be imagined. 

It is one of the secrets of the priesthood that 
when a mutual affection is developed between a 
priest and one of his fair penitents she must be 
induced by every means at the command of the 
church to believe that she has a vocation for a 
religious life, and enter a convent. Love is effect- 
ually smothered in this way, though the vision 
of forbidden fruit rises up too frequently before 
the mind to disturb the quiet of heart that is 
sought for in this manner. The secrets of the 
confessional are subjects of conversation among 
priests in their idle moments more frequently 
than the ouside world could imagine, and such 
topics are far from edifying, for it is usually the 
vicious tendencies of human nature that are re- 
ferred to. If the priest thinks that a full confes- 
sion is not made, he must put such questions as 
will bring out the whole story of one's life — every 
thought, word and deed. The intelligent Roman 
Catholics know how demoralizing the confessional 
is, and there are many men, who, under any cir- 
cumstances, will not allow their wives to confess 
to priests. 



TO CARDINAL MCCL08KET, 97 

The questions a conscientious priest must put 
to those who kneel to him are of such a nature 
that the spirit of evil is aroused in both confessor 
and penitent. The priest fares worse, if possible, 
than the confessing sinner. 

The Athenians of old used to make their slaves 
drunk to inculcate lessons of temperance on their 
children, that the ridiculousness and foulness of 
intoxication might be impressed on their minds . 
from their earliest years. During my theological 
course in the seminary of St. Mary, Baltimore, 
the students were compelled to read up all the 
details of crime and immorality in our text-books, 
in order, as we were told by our professors, that 
we should be able to apply the iStting spiritual 
remedy to cases of that kind that would come be- 
fore us in the confessional. Any one who has 
read the '* Moral Theology '' that is put into the 
hands of students as their text-book, can easily 
see what ideas they receive from such teaching. 
But we were told that it was our bounden duty to 
apply such teaching to the cases that came before 
us in the confessional. Some persons think that 
the Roman Catholic seminaries, where students 
are prepared for the priesthood, are hot-beds of 
vice. I have not found them so ; and I do not 
hesitate to say that the Roman Catholic students 
who are preparing for the priesthood in the vari- 
ous seminaries of Ameiica compare favorablj^ 
with other young men. Some western priest will 



^8 FATHER O'CONXOn's LETTERS 

rise up and say I forget the cases in St. Francis' 
Seminary, Milwaukee, Wis., in 1S69 when I was 
there studying German theology. I do not by 
any means forget how four German students, out 
of two hundred, were solemnly arraigned by the 
venerable Dr. Salzman, the President, for vei y 
serious crimes against morality. Two of them 
were the sacristans, or custodians of the altar 
vestments, etc., and as such had the keys of the 
chapel by which they could let themselves out 
into the world at any time. They availed them- 
selves of this opportunity by going courting every 
night during the pleasant spring-time. The girls, 
who were a necessary part of the courting busi- 
ness, were the daughters of farmers in the 
vicinity. 

Tlie dear old doctor was very indignant at the 
results of these young men's '' wildness.*' The 
proofs were so overwhelming that no denial could 
avail. In fact two babies presented for bap- 
tism at the seminary chapel by the girls, who laid 
the paternity at the door of the ^ay 3 oung stu- 
dents, were very convincing arguments. Other 
priests can relate similar escapades, to put it mild- 
ly, among students in their seminary experince. 
Of course such things are scandalous, but it is 
only natural that some of those students should 
become corrupt from the teaching they learn in 
their moral theology books. 

Wljen the young priest is launched into the 



TO CARDINAL McCLOSKKT. 99 

world, fortified with Ms bundle of questions to be 
put to all kinds of people, tie thinks that he is 
doing the work of Christ in saving souls. And 
the people bring their souls to him to be saved. 
Some time ago a Roman Catholic ladj', distin- 
guished as a lecturer, asked why it is that the 
secrets of the confessional are never revealed by- 
priests even after they leave your church. In 
answering her I used the privilege of an Irishman 
by replying to her with questions as to wliat were 
the ''secrets" referred to, and where was the 
Jiecessity of revealing what all intelligent people 
IcTiew. The sins of the unregenerate, Cardinal, are 
not hidden from the thinking man who watches 
the emotions of his own heart. And sooth to say 
they are not wiped away by merely confessing 
them to a priest. If the penitent derives no bene- 
fit from the confession, assuredly the priest does 
not. In unloading himself of the questions on 
moral acts, or rather, I should say immoral acts, 
the priest himself does not come off unscathed- 
We constantly see instances of this among priests. 
Few can touch pitch and not be defiled. 
Very truly yours, 

James A. 0'Co:nnob. 



100 FATnaR O'CO^NOB'8 lettebs 



Lettek XVII. 

Sir : — It is a characteristic feature of all con- 
troversy in tlie Roman Catholic church that it 
has no other weapons but those of abuse and 
vituperation for those who enter the lists against 
it, especially if they have had the good luck of 
leaving it. 

When a Protestant minister becomes a Ro- 
man Catholic (and thank G-od this is of rare 
occurrence at the present day), he is a very good 
man in your estimation, and is loaded with hon- 
ors by your church. Protestants in general have 
very little to say about him ; they concede his 
right to choose that which his own intelligence, 
be it great or small, tells him is the best way for 
him. He is a free man and has a perfect right to 
go to Rome and become a Papist, or to Turkey 
and become a Mussulman, if his mind and heart 
lead him in that direction. But when a Roman 
Catholic priest renounces his allegiance to your 
church what a hue and cry is raised ! He may 
have been an angel of light while a priest, but 
the moment he casts off his vestments all the 
hounds of calumny in your church begin barking 
at him, and the cry is set up, " Beware of him ! 
he is a bad man , 2 bankrupt in character and 
reputation ; possessed of the devil ; not to be 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 101 

trusted; unworthy of belief," etc. Thas your 
church speaks of him, and its influence is so great 
in this world that many nominal Protestants be- 
lieve this a necessary warning. 

If there were any Protestants of this kind in the 
days of Martin Luther I daresay the cultured 
and refined among them would keep their skirts 
clear of him and tell their acquaintances to be- 
ware of him, because the Pope said he was a bad 
man. But he was good enough to be a zealous 
minister of the sacraments in your church until 
he raised his voice in protest against its supersti- 
tions. 

The priests who flocked around the standard 
of religious freedom that Luther raised, obeying 
the voice of the Lord calling them to " Come out 
of Babylon," were denounced in the same man- 
ner that he was, and every Roman Catholic priest 
who has followed their example has come under 
the same condemnation. All through the cen- 
turies the vials of the wrath of your church have 
been poured out on them, and the vessel is 
always filled for him who comes out last. I have 
come in for my share. I do not comi)lain, for I 
expected it. Neither am I going to defend my- 
self. It is your business to villify me, because I 
sought the salvation of my soul outside the lines 
that you have drawn around your church. The 
solitary ray of light that came to me while I was 
a priest, though very dim and obscure, showed 



102 FATHER O'CONJJOR'S LETTERS 

me that I was in a false position, and I followed 
it until the full illumination of the Gospel of sal- 
vation by Christ alone shone upon my soul. 
"When I realized this I considered it a sacred 
duty to make known the great truth to my 
brethren of the Roman Catholic church whom I 
had unconsciously led astray by false doctrine in 
the past. And I resolved, God helping me, to 
take my stand under the banner of Christ and 
light the good fight of deliverance from supersti- 
tion while life should last. If I had not done 
this I would not be so bitterly denounced by 
your chnrch. If I had merely withdrawn from 
Rome and not raised my voice in protest against 
her false system of religion I could escape 
i:)ersecution and even retain the esteem of my 
friends. Every j^ear many priests leave the 
church of Rome and go into secular business 
who are only too anxious to try to forget and 
make the world forget that they ever had been 
priests. I know many such men. There are 
more than one hundred ministers of the Gospel 
in America preaching in the churches of the 
various Protestant denominations who had been 
Roman Catholic priests, though many members 
of the churches are ignorant of this interesting 
episode in the lives of their pastors. Those 
ministers do not think it their duty to draw 
illustrations from their past lives or to say in 
their preaching, '' When I was a Roman Catholic 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 



priest/' Thus their experience in the iloman 
church and their influence among their former co- 
religionists are thrown away. 

I have chosen another and what I think a bet- 
ter part. I have not retired from the ministry to 
go into secular business, nor have I become a 
minister of any Protestant denomination. I never 
open my mouth to preach but I announce that I 
had been a Catholic priest. Many of my ac- 
quaintances think this is not wise on my part. I 
do not think so, though poverty is my portion, as 
it is that of the brethren who are associated with 
me in the Indei)endent Catholic Church. 

All who have ever known us, know us no more. 
To our parents, our kindred, our parishioners, 
the companions of our youth, and the friends of 
our mature manhood, we are strangers. We are 
dead to them all. 

For fifteen years I have not seen my beloved 
parents or the happy home of my youth. It 
seems a long time ago, for I had kind and indul- 
gent parents. Now my name is banished from 
their lips, and their loving greeting comes to me 
no more. Yet I know the mother's heart yearns 
for her son ; and if God spare her and me, I shall 
yet return to her, and say to her what I preach 
every Sunday, "I am not dead, though I am no 
longer a Roman Catholic priest. I live in Christ 
Jesus, and he lives in me. The faith in the 
religion of Rome that you, my Irish mother, 



10<. FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

taught me has departed from me never to return, 
and the Son of God, our loving Jesus, has come to 
me with his blessed religion instead. That re- 
ligion of Jesus we find in his word, and in the 
Iloh^ Spirit whom he sends to enlighten, comfort 
and strengthen every one who comes to him. 
The Pope has erected a barrier between you and 
your son, because of my renunciation of the super- 
stitions of Rome, but Jesus Christ will break it 
down, my mother ; and if you will come with me 
to kneel to him in supplication, forgiveness, re- 
conciliation and joy shall be with us as we 
embrace, united in his love." 

My mother's heart will turn to me when she 
learns that I am a happier and better man than I 
could be as a Roman Catholic priest, and that it 
is the grace of God and the love of our Lord Jesus 
Christ that has done this for me. She tatight me 
in my youth the way of salvation by fairh in the 
doctrines of Rome. I had no one to teach me 
otherwise in my college days and the early years 
of my priesthood. Now since God has blessed 
me by the knowledge of the true way of salvation 
by faith in the blood of Christ, I consider it 
a great privilege to be able to teach not only my 
own kindred but the Roman Catholic people 
everywhere ; and you. Cardinal, and your priests 
in particular. To every Roman Catholic priest in 
the world I would say : My brother, you have 



I 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 105 

been religiously trained, according to Roman 
ideas, but you have outgrown the fables and 
superstitions of youth, as I have, and you desire 
to be a true and honorable man. Will you not, 
then, come out of the false position in which cir- 
cumstances have placed you, and learn the way 
of the Lord through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
in whom you believe ? The Lord will not make a 
covenant with you while you are mocking him by 
giving to the poor credulous people absolutions 
for sins, when you cannot forgive your own. The 
Lord will not have mercy on you while you are 
cheating the souls of the people out of the redeem- 
ing merits of Jesus Christ by offering for a price 
idolatrous masses that they think take the place 
of the sacrifice of Calvary. Your condition is that 
of a hypocrite, and you know it. You are not 
happy in your present position ; no man could be. 
You now lly to stimulants to drown the sorrows 
of your life, but if you renounce Popery and ask 
Almighty God to help you the Saviour Jesus 
will give you change of heart, a new and happy 
life that shall not depart from you forevermore. 
Confess Jesus before men, and he will confess you 
before the Father who is in Heaven. Do not be afraid 
of the Pope's curses, or of starvation ; the Lord will 
provide all things necessary and good for you. 
He will speak to his people, and they will open 
their hearts at his command. The fatness of the 



106 FATIIEU O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

land is now yours in the Clinrcli of Rome, but it 
does not give you contentment or rest ; rather do 
you and I well loiow that it brings a curse, for the 
holy name, and grace, and merits, of Jesus Christ 
are prostituted for it. Oh, my brother, do not sell 
your soul for such a price. All things shall pass 
away, but the. love of Christ abideth forever. In 
him we have ''everlasting life," and with him we 
shall enter into the kingdom that he has pre- 
l^ared for us. ''In my Father's house there are 
many mansions — if it were not so I should have 
told you." Yes, my brother; if it were not so 
would not Jesus have told us when we asked him in 
sincerity and truth ? " I go to prepare a place for 
you." Come with me to Jesus, my brother priest, 
and let us ask him to teach us how to bring with 
us our brethren w^ho are still vainly seeking him 
in the Church of Rome, and the place he has pre- 
pared for us shall be our inheritance forever. 

It is only a question of time with many priests 
to drop the masks they are now wearing, and pro- 
test against the infamies they see practised in the 
name of religion by the wire-pullers of your 
church. How often have we discussed in Chicago 
the advisability of introducing an amendment to 
the constitution of the United States making 
priests free men, as was done some j^ears ago for 
the slaves of the Southern States. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 107 



LETTER XVIII. 
Sir: 

How many priests do we see every day with 
rubicund clieeks and blooming noses, giving evi- 
dence of the sensual lives they lead. All priests 
use intoxicating liquors more freely than other 
professional men, and thus become dissipated 
even while they are preaching temperance to the 
people. A young man usually begins his minis- 
try in the Roman Catholic Church without any 
vicious habits, even though as a student, in his 
vacations, he may have been the recipient of a 
flowing hospitality from some of the priests. But 
from the day he begins his priestly life the habit 
of using wine and liquor begins to grow. From 
the custom of drinking wine every morning, be- 
fore he takes any food, he is habituated to the con- 
stant use of intoxicating liquors. Every morning 
you say mass, that is, you offer up as a sacrilice 
in your hands, what you try to make the people 
believe is thw body and blood, sonl and divinity 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in doing so you 
drink two glasses of good wine that you say you 
have magically changed or transubstantiated into 
the blood of Christ. Now listen, Cardinal! It 
is the experience of all young priests that for 
several months after their ordination, when they 
say mass in the morning, and use the regular 
quantity of wine at that ceremony, they usually 



103 FATIIEIl 0'CO:,^'OR'S LETTERS 

find their heads a little bit intoxicated. What is 
the cause of it? If you and the other priests 
have the power to cliange the wine into the blood 
of Christ, why does what is taken at the mass 
make yon feel the same as any glass or two of 
good wine would. 

The " consecrated" wine produces the same re- 
sults as the wine you use at the dinner table. 
Should you doubt this, suppose yon order your 
butler to bring up from the cellar a few bottles of 
your good claret or catawba, and consecrate them. 
By the teaching of your church, that wine be- 
comes the blood of Christ, yet after you had in- 
dulged in it T venture to say you would become 
the subject of a temperance lecture, as an "awful 
example." What a profanation this is, that you 
so audaciously pretend to work a miracle when 
God himself is the subject of it, and when our 
reason tells us that you are imposing on the 
ignorance of your followers. The love of Christ 
fills the soul with joy, but the blood of Christ, 
while it cleanseth from all sin, does not make a 
man drunk. There are few priests' houses all the 
world over where wine or beer is not used regu- 
larly at table, and he is set down as a mean, 
stingy priest who has not a black bottJe of real 
old rye or bourbon whiskey for his friends when 
they call to see him. Priests are continually 
visiting ench other and w^here a man is not so- 
cially inclined the saloon-keepers in every town 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 109 

are the chief men in the parish, and, of conrse, 
his special friends. There may be some excep- 
tions to this rule, but they are few. 

Now I am not surprised that so many priests 
become dissipated, nor shonld Christian men 
when considering what the d lily life of a priest 
is. But it is a matter of surprise that people 
should continue to believe that the divine favor 
and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can come 
to them only by the hands of such priests. It is 
a common sayino; among Roman Catholics that 
a priest who is under a ban from dissipation or 
any other cause, has more ''power" than one 
whose deportment is quite correct. This is why 
they are so unwilling to hear anything against 
their priests. Let the priest be a good or bad 
man, he has the bishop's faculties, or the Pope's 
commission, to officiate and give the sacraments 
of salvation to the people, and that is all they 
want. In Ireland when a priest was " silenced" 
for any cause, the people came to him from far 
and near to have cures performed for every kind 
of disease. Those who had not money to offer 
him usually took a bottle of whiskey, and under 
its influence the poor man had no scruple to work 
as many '' miracles " as were desired. 

Of course the Church of Rome says that it is 
not responsible for all this, that it cannot make 
saints of all its priests, and that bad men are 
sometimes found in the Protestant churches. But 



110 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

the Protestant churches quickly dismiss a TYian 
from the ministry if his conduct is reprehensible ; 
whereas in the Roman Church ''once a priest, 
always a priest," is strictly held as one of the 
cardinal doctrines. The king can do no wrong, 
was one of the i)rivileges of those monarchs who, 
in times past, ruled by Divine right, as they said. 
So with Roman Catholics ; it is the man and not 
the priest who walks in evil ways. This doctrine 
has led to the overthrow of dynasties by popular 
revolutions. It has induced priests and Popes to 
commit most flagrant crimes when they knew that 
the people would submit. But as surely as the 
right divine of kings has departed, never to return 
so surely will the bogus powers of the priests sink 
in uttermost darkness before the light of the Gos- 
pel and the intelligence that is so gloriously shin- 
ing all over the world. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY, 111 



Letter XIX. 



Sir : — In the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the 
Romans, St. Paul tells us that his heart's desire 
and prayer to God was that his Jewish brethern 
might be saved. He had known what it was to 
be zealous in the faith of his fathers, but when he 
received the fullness of salvation by faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, he earnestly prayed that his co- 
religionists might be partakers of the same bless- 
ing. My condition is not unlike that of Paul. I 
was zealous in the cause of the Roman Catholic 
faith until I found that it was not built upon the 
rock of salvation, Jesus Christ, but upon men and 
their doctrines. And when Jesus was made known 
to me as the author and finisher of the faith, and 
the loving Saviour who wanted my heart that he 
might take up his dwelling there, I did not resist 
him. I could not love him by my own natural 
powers, but I could let him love me ; and the bless- 
ing that has come upon me I want others to share, 
including those whom I left behind me in your 
church. They are precisely in the condition of 
the Jews to whom Paul refers : " For I bear them 
record that they have a zeal of God, but not ac- 
cording to knowledge. For they being ignorant 
of God's righteousness, and going about to estab- 
lish their own righteousness, have not submitted 
themselves unto the righteousness of God.'' 



112 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

Surely this is as applicable to the Roman Catho- 
lics of the present day as it was to the people of 
whom the Apostle speaks. The external life of 
Roman Catholic faith is seen in the church build- 
ings, schools, convents, and other institutions of 
that church, and these, with the punctual attend- 
ance of the people at mass on Sundays, show 
that they they have a zeal of God. But it is not 
according to knowledge, for they do these things 
and go to you and other men like you, the heads 
of their church, to establish their own righteous- 
ness, not knowing that, as the apostle continues : 
''Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believe th." He is the object to- 
wards which the mind and heart of every one 
must be directed, and those who look to him, and 
to him alone, attain the righteousness of God. 
This seemed hard for the Jews to understand ; it 
is just as hard for the Roman Catholic. They 
sought their own justification in fullfiling the let- 
ter of the law, they could not understand how the 
law was rolled up in the person of Christ. They 
seemed to say, in despair of attaining this justifi- 
cation, '' Oh ! if we could get some one to ascend 
into Heaven and bring Christ down to us, or to de- 
scend into the deep and bring him up, we might 
believe. ' ' This wish was an impossibility for those 
to whom the Apostle refers. He tells them to look 
into the book of Deuteronomy and there find the 
same wish expressed (x. 12-13). Paul would do 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. U8 

anything that was within his power to bring his 
own people to a knowledge of Christ. But he 
could not do this. Christ had come and made 
himself known to the people, and if they would 
not accept his mediatorship in attaining the 
righteousness of God they must be accountable 
for their own blindness. It was not necessary for 
them to look above or beneath, to search the heav- 
ens or to cross the seas to find this means of justi- 
fication that would make them righteous before 
God. It was to be found in the faith that was 
preached to them. What Paul could not do for 
his Jewish brethem, your church does not hesitate 
to do for the Roman Catholic people. The word 
of salvation was nigli unto them, he said, even in 
their mouths and their hearts, that is, in the faith 
in Jesus Christ that he preached to them. But 
your church says that is not sufiicient, the people 
cannot understand the word, and Christ must be 
brought down. And every priest of the Roman 
Catholic Church, good and bad, holy and unholy, 
says, "lean bring him down as often as I say 
mass ; I can do what Paul could not, or what God 
said was vain for any man even to wish to do." 
And the Roman Catholic people believe this blas- 
phemous boasting. 

Before leaving the seminary in Baltimore, im- 
mediately before my ordination, the Superior, Dr. 
Dubreuil, told the class that the oflice of pro- 
fessors in the seminary was a nigher and a holier 



114 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

one than that of the Apostles. The latter were 
the teachers of the gospel to the people, but the 
former were doing the work that Jesus did while 
on earth, teaching the Apostles, as the professors 
were teaching us, the successors of the Apostles. 
In the Roman Catholic mind the priest is always 
associated with Christ in the work of salvation. 
The Lord could not do his work in saving souls 
without the aid of the priest ; even more than that, 
for he must obey the priest, come when he calls 
him, take the form of a wafer and be subject to 
him, as in the mass. 

My heart's desire and prayer to God is that the 
Roman Catholics might be saved, as it was with 
Paul for the Jews. A representative Jew was 
that Pharisee who thought the righteousness of 
God became his when he observed the law and did 
all the good works required by the law, such as 
fasting and paying tithes. 

The average Roman Catholic in like manner 
thinks that by obeying your church and observ- 
ing your laws, his salvation is secured. He fully 
accepts what St. Paul preached : 

''That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that 
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt 
be saved." 

"For there is no difference between the Jew 
and the Greek (or the Protestant and Roman Catho- 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 11 U 

lie) for the same Lord over all is rich nnto all that 
€all upon him." 

''For whosoever shall call upon the name of the 
Lord shall be saved." 

This is not sufficient for the Roman Catholic, 
for your church tells him that he must believe in 
many other things with the same faith that he be- 
lieves in Christ, before he can be saved. He must 
believe with the same firm faith which he has in tlie 
Trinity and Incarnation that the Virgin Mary is 
the mother of God, and that she partakes of the di- 
vine attributes ; for millions of Roman Catholics 
are praying to her and asking her for help at the 
•same moment, and all believe that she hears and 
grants their particular requests. 

He must believe in the power of the saints as 
only a little less than that of Mary, and that it is 
a duty to pray to every dead person whom the 
Pope declares to be a saint. 

He must believe that the Pope is infallible when 
he speaks or acts as the head of the church, though 
he may be the greatest rascal at heart. 

He must believe that you. Cardinal, and every 
Roman Catholic bishop has the power to ordain 
any man, good or bad, learned or unlearned, and 
make him a priest. 

He must believe that every priest has the pow- 
ers of calling the Lord Jesus Christ down from 
Heaven to assume the form of a wafer every time 
that mass is said, and that the Lord God our Sav- 



116 PATRER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

iour must remain in that wafer until it decomposes. 

He must believe that every priest has the 
power of forgiving sins. 

He must believe that it is as great a sin to deny 
the authority of the Pope as to deny the existence of 
God, or to eat meat on Friday as to blaspheme 
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or to say ''bad 
luck to the Pope" as to curse God. 

He must believe in holy water and the seven 
sacraments and purgatory. I could fill many 
pages with the doctrines that the Roman Catholic 
must believe before he can hope to be in the right 
way of salvation, even though he may have the 
fullness of faith that the Apostle Paul preached. 
But enough has been shown to give an idea of the 
idolatry and superstitions that your church has 
added to the plan of salvation brought from 
heaven by the Son of God and handed down to us 
by the Apostles. The pity of it is, that while the 
Roman Catholics have the essentials of faith, 
enough for their salvation, they are covered up 
by the un-christain additions their church has 
made to the truth, and are thus made void. 

An old writer says that the Church of Christ 
when first founded by the Apostles, resembled a 
pillar of pure, spotless marble ; but by degrees 
the Roman Church succeeded in driving a nail 
into this marble, once so fair and undeflled, and 
she used this nail to hang on it the vestments of 
the priests. Then another and many more nails 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 117 

were added, on wMcli were placed mass-books and 
Tosaries, scapulars and images, just such things 
as the Pagan Romans were accustomed to use in 
their worship of gods and godesses. One big nail 
was to support a throne for the Virgin Mary, 
another to hold up the throne of the Pope and his 
triple crown. In this way the whole pillar was 
covered, and the people lost sight of it. They 
saw only the hangings, and forgot the building 
which they seemed to conceal. But God raised 
up courageous reformers in the persons of Catho- 
lic priests who saw how deceptive the Roman 
religion was, and they pulled out the nails, and 
tore down what was suspended to them — vest- 
ments, Papal throne, and all — and thus the pillar 
of the truth was once more made manifest to the 
whole world, and the people in great numbers 
turned away from Romanism to euibrace it. 

You know what the Lord said to those who 
gave more heed to the commandments and 
traditions of men than to the commandments 
of God: ^'This people honoreth me with their 
lips, but their heart is far from me. How- 
beit in vain do they worship me teaching for 
doctrines the commandments of men. For laying 
aside the commandments of God, ye hold the tra- 
dition of men, ^ * * making the word of God of 
none effect through your tradition.'' (Mark vii). 

In my own exi:)erien('e as a Roman Catholic and 
a i)riest, I know how true this is of the great mass 



118 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

of Roman Catholics ; and because their spiiitual 
interests are dear to me I shall endeavor to show 
the false and untenable position of your church, 
built as it is on such commandments, traditions 
and ceremonies, that the truth of God might have 
full and free scope among them. They have made 
great and heroic sacrifices for the faith that Rome 
has given them, and they have received no return. 
iN'either in this world, nor in the world beyond, if 
the word of God be true, have the Roman Catho- 
lics been benefited by the form of Christianity that 
has been preached to them. The Protestant 
nations of the earth have shown themselves super- 
ior to the Catholic nations in all things that tend 
to the civilization of the race ; and if intelligence, 
virtue and christian lives be the characteristics of 
the children of God, surely in this respect there 
is no need of a comparison between the members 
of Protostant churches and Roman Catholics. 
Yours trulj^, 

James A. 0'Con:n^or. 



Letter XX. 

Sir: — It is the proud boast of your church 
that Roman Catholics in proportion to their num- 
bers are more regular in their attendance at 
church than Protestants. This is not true of 
Protestants who are also church-members. 
Of the other kind of Protestants, those who 



TO CARDINAL McCLOSKET. 119 

never go to church or Sunday school, I know 
little. I presume there are some to be found in 
every community. But even if all the Roman 
Catholics in the United States should go to church 
every Sunday, which not one half of them do, 
they would still be outnumbered by the Metho- 
dists or Baptists ; and if we count the Presbyter- 
ians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists and other 
branches of the Church of Christ, the Roman 
Catholics stand only as one to live. In this enum- 
eration the infants and all the children of Roman 
Catholics are counted, while the actual members 
only of the churches referred to are included. 
When a Protestant goes to church it is to unite 
with his fellow christians in the worship of God. 
The Roman Catholic goes in obedience to the 
command of the church that tells him he commits 
a mortal sin if he he does not hear mass But 
does he not worship God in hearing mass ? i he 
best answer I can give to this question is to de- 
scribe what the mass is. 

Your church teaches that the mass is ilie 
sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ 
which are really present under the appearance of 
bread and wine ; and are offered to God by the 
priest for the living and the dead." 

To see this "sacrifice" the people go to their 
churches every Sunday, and with earnestness fol- 
low the priest in all that he does while performing 
the ceremony. The people see the priest on the 



120 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

altar going through certain motions with his 
hands, feet, head and body ; now the hands 
stretched out, now the body bent, now the knees 
and head bowed down. He is all the time mut- 
tering words in a foreign language. No one, ex- 
cept another priest or some learned man who is 
near enough to distinguish the words, understands 
what is said, for the language used is Latin. The 
people do not know whether the priest pronoun- 
ces the words that change the bread and wine into 
God or not. They presume that he does, but there 
have been many instances, even in recent years, 
where priests have not used the words of consecra- 
tion. Neither do the people know that the ele- 
ments used in the sacrifice are really bread and 
wine. I have now in memory a case of actual ex- 
perience. A certain priest had two churches to 
attend, and on leaving his residence on a Sunday 
morning he told the housekeeper to put a bottle 
of wine into his valise to be used at the distant 
church. He said the first mass all right, and had 
proceeded with the second, in which he used the 
bottle prepared by the housekeeper, until he 
came to the communion, and while drinking what 
he thought had been wine he found it was old 
lager beer. It need scarcely be said there was no 
sacrifice in that mass, though the people bowed 
down and worshiped the beer as earnestly as if it 
had been wine changed into the blood of Christ. 
The newspapers recently brought us the Intel- 



TO CARDINAL Mt-CLOSKEY. 121 

ligence from France that a certain bishop re- 
ceived a cask of wine from a dealer that was 
pronounced excellent for mass purposes. He 
recommended all his priests to get their wine from 
that dealer. The latter could not supply the de- 
mand at the moderate price the priests were 
willing to pay, but he did not like to lose such a 
good trade, and he sent them another wine of dif- 
ferent quality. When the bishop's cask was 
empty he sent to the dealer for another ; but 
when this was tested it was found to be too large- 
ly diluted with alcohol. He was a conscientious 
bishop, and he immediately issued a pastoral 
letter telling his priests that the wine they had 
been using was not the genuine article, in fact 
was more like brandy than wine, and that all the 
masses that had been said with that adulterated 
wine were null and void, and should be said over 
again in all cases where money had been received 
for them. The moral of this is that every Ro- 
man Catholic who pays a priest for a mass should 
stipulate that the wine must be genuine. 

The mass is said by your church to be a sacri- 
fice, a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the 
dead, and the people believe that it is offered for 
their sins in the same manner that the Son of 
God offered himself on Calvary for the sins of the 
world. But St. Paul tells us in his Ejnstle to 
the Hebrews that Jesus Christ in his own person 
is the true i)ropitiatory sacrifice for our sins, and 



123 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

that in his death was this sacrifice made effectual 
for us. He doss not die every time a priest says 
mass. In the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the 
Romans we read, ''Knowing that Christ, rising 
again from the dead, dieth no more, death shall 
no more have dominion over him. For in that he 
died to sin, he died once." St. Peter says (1 
Peter, iii., 18) "Christ also died once for our sins, 
the just for the unjust, that he might offer us to 
God." And recurring again to Hebrews we have 
the word of God for it that our blessed Saviou^^ 
offered himself as a sacrifice once and only once 
for us: ''Nor yet that he should offer himself 
often, as the high priest entereth into the holies 
every year with the blood of others. For then 
he ought to have suffered often from the begin- 
ning of the world, but now once at the end of 
ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, 
by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is ap- 
pointed unto men once to die, and, after this, the 
judgment : so also Christ was offered once to 
bear the sins of many ; the second time he 
shall appear without sin, to them that expect 
him unto salvation." (Heb. ix). 

I could go on showing from the word of God 
that the priest could not, even if he were the 
holiest being that ever lived, offer up a sacrifice 
which the Son of God alone had offered once and 
forever. But the people believe it, and go to 
church for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 123 

After a number of excellent prayers (in Latin 
of course) the priest proceeds to consecrate 
the bread and wine. Your church teaches that 
he does this by using the same words that 
our Lord used when he sat with his disciples at 
his last supper. The text from Matthew is as fol- 
lows: (xxvi. 26 28). 

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, 
and blessed and brake and gave to the dis- 
ciples, and said, take, eat ; this is my body.'^ 
''And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and 
gave to them, saying, drink ye all of it ; for 
this is my blood of the new testament, which is 
shed for many for the remission of sins.'' 

With all reverence do 1 wish to write on this 
subject, but let it be remarked here, that if the 
bread and wine were then changed into the body 
and blood of Christ, he held his body in his hand 
and broke it as he gave it to the disciples ; and in 
like manner he held his blood in the cup in his 
hand as he gave it to them. Now that this did 
not take place we can see by the next verse, 
where he says ''I will not drink henceforth of 
this fruit of the vine." It was still the wine even 
after lie had changed it into his blood, as your 
church says. It was the same with his body. 
The bread could not be changed into it, for a 
member of the body was at the moment speaking 
of it, and another member was holding it, and the 
real blood was flowing in the veins of the active 
body and could not be in the cup 



124 FATHEB ^'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

The meaning of this saying of our Lord can be 
found in the words he uttered at the end of the 
last supper. Al St. Paul explains to us (1 Cor. 
xi.), and I give the whole passage to show that 
the Apostles did not believe that the bread and 
wine were changed into the body and blood of 
Christ. "For I have received of the Lord that 
which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord 
Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed 
took bread : and wiien he had given thanks, he 
broke it, and said, take, eat ; this is my body, 
which is broken for you ; this do in remembrance 
of me." 

After the same manner also he took the cup, 
when he had supped, saying, "This cup is the 
new testament in my blood ; this do ye, as oft as 
ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often 
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do 
show the Lord's death till he come." 

As I am not writing a treatise that would be 
beyond the comprehension of even a Roman 
Catholic child, I need not point out how the 
words, " this is my body." does not mean, "this 
is changed into my body," but "this represents 
or signifies, my body, w^hich is to be broken for 
you." The body of our Lord was not broken 
then and there while he w^as speaking. In many 
parts of the Bible the same figure of speech is 
used, as in Genesis xli: "And Joseph said unto 
Pharaoh, the seven good kine are seven years; 



[to cardinal mccloskey. 125 

and the seven good ears are seven years ;'^ and in 
Revelation!, 20: ''The seven candlesticks are 
the seven churches;" and Christ says in the Gos- 
pel of St. John (xv, 1.), "I am the true vine, 
and my Father is the husbandman." In our or- 
dinary speech the same mode of expression is 
used. Go into any Roman Catholic church and 
ask some old Irish woman, who is praying before 
a statue or picture, what that is before which she 
is kneeling, and the answer will be, " the Blessed 
Virgin Mary," or ''St. Joseph," or some other 
"saint." In many instances the poor creatures 
imagine that the statues hear their prayers, but 
intelligent people understand that the statues or 
pictures merely represent the persons named. 

The people bow down in adoration at that part 
of mass where the priest pronounces the words 
of consecration. They would not know the right 
moment if the boys who attend the priest did 
not vigorously ring the bell or strike the gong to 
draw their attention to it. The pious Roman 
Catholic is exhorted by the priest to imagine tliat 
Jesus can be seen at that moment actually com- 
ing down through the roof of the church to abide 
in the wafer and the wine, The priest at the com- 
munion consumes the wafer and drinks every 
drop in the chalice, and if tliere be any peo])le 
for communion he gives them tlie wafer only. If 
the Apostles ever said mass, whicli tliey did nor, 
the Blessed Virgin Mary must have taken tlu^ 



126 FATHER O'CO^JNOR'S LETTERS 

communion with them, and must of necessity, if 
she believed what the Church of Rome teaches, 
have eaten her own son. But the Virgin Mary 
was no Roman Catholic, and so was not guilty of 
such cannibalism. 

In this monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation 
the people are made to believe that when they re- 
ceive communion they swallow the Lord Jesus 
Christ, his body and blood, soul and divinity, his 
head, feet, finger-nails, hair, toe-nails, muscles, 
bones, nerves, skin and intestines, Even if they 
could eat and digest a whole body it is hard to see 
how that could benefit the soul. And even you 
will admit that it is as the food of the soul that 
the Lord gives himself to us in the sacrament of 
the last supper. 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'Cois^nor. 



LETTER XXL 

Sir : From the second chapter of Acts we know 
how the Lord's Supper was commemorated by the 
first Christians ; and the waiters of the succeeding 
centuries, such as Justin Martyr, Origen, and Ter- 
tullian, inform us that during the first three hun- 
dred years the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
was administered in the following manner : — After 
the reading of the holy scriptures, the congrega- 



TO CARDINAL MCCLUSKEY. 127 

tion praised God in hymns and canticles, and then 
united in prayer for divine mercy and thanksgiv- 
ing for blessings. Prayer was offered over the 
bread and wine, of which the communicants par- 
took in commemoration of the love of Jesus. The 
bread was broken and the wine poured out by the 
minister, and handed round by the elders to the 
people, who received it standing or sitting. 

With very slight variations, the churches '^con- 
tinued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrines 
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
prayer." 

One of the most singular delusions among Roman 
Catholic people is that Christ said the first mass. 
I have explained that the mass is accounted a sac- 
rifice, and if Christ offered himself at the last 
supper, and again on the cross, one of these two 
sacrifices must have been superfluous. If Jesus 
offered himself while sitting at supper with his 
disciples, how can it be shown that it was necessary 
to offer himself again on the cross ? The truth is 
there was only one sacrifice by the Lord Jesus 
Christ; ''and after he had offered one sacrifice for 
sin forever, he sat down on the right hand of God : 
for by one offering he has perfected forever them 
that are sanctified." 

I would like to tell how this plain teaching of 
the Apostles grewinto such an unnatural doc trine as 
that of transubstantiation ; how the word '* tkans- 
substantiation" was never heard of until the year 



128 FATHER O'CONNOU'S LETTERS 

1215, and was then Introduced by order of Pope 
Innocent III., at the Fourth Lateran Council; how 
individuals and whole nations acquiesced in what 
the Pope said, because darkness of the understand- 
ing was general, and whatever learning there was 
in the world was almost exclusively confined to 
the priests and monks. But it is not necessary to 
follow strong delusions that for a time become lies ; 
the truth will prevail over them. It has done so 
in this case, and will more manifestly in the future 
as the Roman Catholic people study the Scrip- 
tures and think for themselves. 

It may be asked, do the priests really believe 
in this doctrine, and did I believe it when I 
was a Roman Catholic? Certainly I did, and I 
know many priests who believe it witli a sort 
of general faith, the same as they believe that 
death will come some time, but how or when 
no one knows. But like many persons who act 
during life as if they did not believe in death or 
care about it, the majority of priests show by 
their actions that they do not believe they have 
the power of changing bread and wine into God. 
They dare not say so while they are still officiat- 
ing as priests, but as soon as they become cour- 
ageous enough to escape from the Roman Cath- 
olic priesthood it is a great relief to them to re- 
nounce publicly the doctrine of transubstantiation. 

During the week of my ordination to the priest- 
hood in Chicago I had a long controversy with 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. I2[f 

one of the Jesuits about the presence of Christ 
Id the wafer. I brought before him the many 
cases in history where it is recorded that priests 
and even Popes were poisoned while saying mass. 
One case was that of a French priest w^ho had 
led astray a respectable girl in his parish. When 
her condition could no longer be concealed she 
besought him to marry her, and when he refused 
to do this, saying the laws of France did not recog- 
nize the validity of priests' marriages, she begged 
him to give her sufficient money to take her away 
from the home she had disgraced. This he also 
refused to do, but he suggested to her to accuse 
some of the young men of the neighborhood of 
her ruin. Stung to madness by such baseness the 
girl resolved to kill him. One morning she put 
some poison in the wine that he was to use at 
mass. The priest said the mass as usual, and was 
taken sick immediately after the communion. A 
physician was summoned, but before he arrived, 
the girl, who had been present in the churchdu r- 
ing mass, went to the priest and told him what 
she had done. The priest did not know but he 
might recover, and to avoid the scandal he told 
the doctor that he had taken the poison by mis- 
take. He died within a few hours. Many years 
afterwards the girl made a confession of the crime 
but no steps were taken to punish her for it. 

I asked the Jesuit could the wine with the 
poison added be changed into the blood of Christ. 



130 FATRER O'CONNORS LETTERS 

He answered, that as the small quantity of water 
that is always mixed with the wine in the chalice 
is changed with the wine into the blood, he saw 
no reason to doubt that a small quantity of poi- 
son, even though it be strong enough to cause 
death, could also be changed with the wine. I 
was not satisfied with the answer, but I had to 
believe it, though I knew then as well as now 
that the blood of Christ could not poison any 
one. 

If we could not be Christians without believing 
this doctrine, it would not be hard for us to obey 
God when his will was made known in this respect 
as in the other articles of faith. But the revealed 
word of God and our own reason tell us that 
there is no truth in the assertion of your Church 
that a priest can change bread and wine into the 
body and blood of Christ, and that it is not 
necessary for salvation to receive him into our 
bodies as we take food to give us strength. Jesus 
Christ is the food of our souls, and we live in 
grace by him and in him, according to his promise 
to abide in us if we observe his commands. 

One of the many factors in my conversion from 
the Roman Catholic faith was the following inci- 
dent which I found in an old periodical. It was 
taken from the writings of Blanco White, a Roman 
Catholic priest of Spain in the first years of the 
present century. He left his native land and the 
Roman Catholic Church in 1810, went to England, 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 131 

Studied at Oxford, became an Episcopal minister, 
and held most intimate relations with John Henry 
Newman, now Cardinal Newman. Blanco White 
relates that one day while saying mass in the 
cathedral of Seville when he came to that part 
of it where he broke the wafer, as he put one 
particle of it aside a mouse came out of a crevice 
in the altar and ran away with it. He made a grasp 
for the animal, but it was too quick for him and 
safely got into its hole with the precious wafer. 
He finished the mass as speedily as possible and 
told the other clergy what had happened. A de- 
cree of death was at once pronounced against the 
mouse, but it was not so easy to put it into execu- 
tion. The sexton and his assistants commenced 
a vigorous search for the sacrilegious thief, and 
after a time they were successful. A mouse was 
caught beneath the altar stone and brought to 
the holy fathers. They ordered it to be dissected 
to see if any trace of the stolen wafer could be 
discovered. The poor mouse was cut open, but 
not even a crumb was found. If this mouse were 
the veritable thief, sufficient time had elapsed for 
the purposes of digestion. Blanco White says 
that he propounded the question to his brotlier 
priests, whether the mouse had in reality eateu 
the Lord Jesus Christ? And the answer of all was, 
that as the doctrine of transubtantiation by which 
the wafer was changed into Christ was true, it 
must be equally true that what the mouse had 



132 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

eaten was not the wafer, but the body of Christ. 
If the priest believed that he had really and truly 
eaten the flesh of the Son of God, his soul and 
divinity, in the form of a wafer, he must also be- 
lieve that the mouse had done the same. 

When I read this I well remember the blood 
mounted to my face, and with indignation I cast 
the book from me. I tried to put away the ideas 
suggested by the incident, but I could not; and as 
Blanco White said of himself, he could never get 
over the disgust for the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion brought on by this event, neither could I 
overcome the natural repugnance I felt for it. 
The Pope, or any Roman Catholic, or a mouse can 
consume that wafer ; it tastes like a very thin 
pie crust ; a dozen of them would give a person 
dyspepsia as surely as so many pies. I have 
had some experience of this when consuming 
the particles in the ciborium after they had been 
consecrated a couple of weeks. Yet we must 
believe against the evidence of all the senses as 
well as of the stomach, that it is not wafers w^e 
have been eating but the flesh and blood of the 
God-man. When the ciborium has not been 
cleaned for several weeks the priest is not re- 
quired to eat the particles, for decomposition sets 
in and the wafer is alive with worms, as any one 
can see with a microscope. In such cases they 
are thrown into a hole behind the altar, which 
is also the receptacle of h\l the dirty water used 
by the priest in washino^ his hands. 



TO CARDINAL M^CLOSKEY. 133 

One of the things we were told to believe in the 
seminary was, that a priest could go into a bakery 
and by pronouncing the words of consecration 
over the bread change every loaf into the flesh 
and blood of Christ. Every intelligent person 
will say this is nonsense, but it is the sober fact, 
and every priest imagines he has the power to do it. 

The greatest argument brought forward by those 
in the Roman Catholic faith who seek to defend 
or justify the doctrine of transubstantiation is, thai 
in denying it we doubt or limit the power of God. 
Why can he not be living in the form of a wafer 
and be in heaven at the same time ? But in re- 
jecting this doctrine of Rome, men do not deny 
the omnipotenee of God. God can do all things 
that do not involve a contradiction. He cannot 
make two and two to be five. He cannot deny 
himself, cannot lie, cannot cease to be in any 
particular place. He can make a man out of clay, 
or he can change a horse into a cow, but then the 
cow thus formed would not be a horse. In the 
fourth chapter of the book of Exodus the Lord 
said unto Moses, ''Cast thy rod on the ground. 
And he cast it on the ground, and it became a ser- 
pent ; and Moses fled from before it." It was not 
a rod and a serpent at the same time ; it was a 
real live serpent that I doubt not hissed at Moses. 
The wafer is a wafer all the time, a inece of bread 
and nothing else. "And the Lord said unto 
Moses, put forth thine hand and take it by the 



134 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

tail. And lie put forth his hand, and caught it, 
and it became a rod in his hand." Here 
was a rod and a serpent changed alternately by 
the power of God. In making the wafer the 
priest's housekeeper (or nuns, to whom that work 
has been now almost exclusively confined), usually 
moulds a figure of the crucifixion on it and 
the poor people in their ignorance imagine that 
figure to be the living Christ. When the Pope or 
you or any priest- can change a piece of bread 
into a man, much more into God, and let all the 
world see it done, then, and not till then, will 
intelligent people -believe in the doctrine of 
transubstantiation. 

Very truly yours, 

James A. O'Connor. 



LETTER XXII. 

Sir: — A most impressive ceremony was that 
which was recently held over the remains of the 
late Archbishop Hughes, when they were trans- 
ferred from the old St. Patrick's church to the 
vaults of the cathedral on Fifth avenue. A great 
concourse of Roman Catholics assembled, the 
sanctuary was filled with priests and bishops, a 
large catafalque was erected in front of the altar, 
on which the coflSn was laid. It was fitting that 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 185 

the memory of the deceased should be honored in 
such a place, for he was the founder of the cathe- 
dral, and built up the diocese over which you now 
preside to a commanding position in the Roman 
Catholic Church. He was a distinguished prelate 
of that church, and fought her battles in this 
country as no other man did before his time or 
since. He fulfilled all the duties required of a 
devout Roman Catholic bishop, and he died with 
all the rites of his church that are specially ap- 
pointed to benefit the soul. The desire to pay 
respect to his memory on this occasion was laud- 
able, even though we condemn the methods pur- 
sued. But there was one feature of the ceremony 
over his remains that has a peculiar significance. 
A solemn requiem mass was offered for the repose 
of his soul. And now the question comes up, 
where is his soul ? The consistent Christian be- 
lieves that when death comes after a life of faith 
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and union with him, the 
soul goes U) the home prepared for it ' ' over there. ' ' 
If there were any certainty of this on your part in 
the case of Archbishop Hughes, you would not 
have the sacrifice of the mass offered for him, as it 
would be entirely unnecessary. Every Roman 
Catholic would scout the idea that the soul of such 
a champion of their faith should go to hell, ''a 
place of eternal torment." Yet, by the teacliing 
of your church, in offering the mass for his soul, 
y )U assume that it has not gone to heaven, the 



136 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

home of the blessed. And if it be not in heaven 
or in hell, it must be somewhere between them. 
Such a place your church has conveniently pro- 
vided. All Roman Catholic theologians agree in 
saying that the masses and prayers for the dead 
are offered on the supposition that the soul prayed 
for is in purgatory. I take from the catechism 
that every Roman Catholic child learns the fol- 
lowing : — 

" What is purgatory ? A place of punishment 
in the other life, where some souls suffer for a time 
before they can go to heaven. 

*'Who goes to purgatory? They who die in 
venial sin. 

^'What is venial sin? A small sin that hurts 
the soul by lessening its love for God, and dispos- 
ing it to mortal sin. 

^' What is mortal sin? A grievous offence or 
transgression against the law of God. 

''Where shall they go who die in mortal sin ? 
To hell for all eternity. 

'' Can the souls in purgatory be relieved by our 
prayers and other good works? Yes; being chil- 
dren of God, and still members of the church, 
they share in the communion of saints." 

That is all the dogmatic teaching that your 
church has in reference to purgatory. When I 
open my text-book on theology, such as we used 
in the seminary in Baltimore, of which Bishop 
Bouvier is the author, a standard work in the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 137 

Roman Catholic Church, I find some explana- 
tions of this dogma. First of all, he says your 
church has decreed anathema against any one 
who will not believe in purgatory. The words 
of the decree of the Council of Trent are: "If 
any one shall say that, after the reception of the 
grace of justification, the guilt is so remitted to 
the penitent sinner, and the penalty of eternal 
punishment destroyed, that no penalty of tem- 
poral punishment remaining to be paid, either in 
this world or in the future in purgatory, before 
access to the kingdom of Heaven can lie open, 
let him be accursed." Some of the old doctors 
and fathers thought there was an immense cavity 
in the centre of the earth divided into various 
compartments. One was hell, which was an im- 
mense lake, not composed of water, but of molten 
brimstone, the sulphuric exhalations of which 
were lashed into a burning flame. The devil was 
the ruler of this horrible place, and into it were 
plunged all the souls that died in mortal sin. 
Adjoining this was another compartment compos- 
ed of the same material of fire and brimstone, but 
not governed by Satan, and into this were cast 
those who died in venial sin. This was purgatory. 
The sufferings of the souls were the same in both 
places — burning and torture without intermission 
or rest. But those in the purgatory region knew 
that some time or other, it might be centuries or 
thousands of years, relief would come to them, 



188 FATHEB O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

while the inhabitants of hell had no hope of the 
kind — ''out of hell there is no redemption. '* 
Bishop Bouvier teaches this, and so do you, Car- 
dinal, and so did I while I was a priest in your 
church, for I did not know any better, reared and 
educated as I had been, with only such mental 
food as your books of theology to nourish my 
intellect, and the love of Christ kept away from 
my heart by your abominable superstitions. 
Bouvier teaches that in purgatory there is a 
material fire, "like the fire of hell"; and the 
priest in praying for the souls of the faithful does 
not ask merely for a place of light and peace, but 
also for a refrigerator. Hefriyerium is the word 
used by Bouvier and the Council of Trent. It 
means a cooler or cooling-place, but such things 
we now call refrigerators. Lest you should think 
I am joking, 1 give you the whole passage out of 
Bouvier : " In Purgatorio esse ignem materialem 
similem igni infernali,et ideo Ecclesiam pro anima- 
bus fidelium orantem, non petere tantum locum 
lucis e t pacis, sed et ref rigerii, videlicet contra ignis 
ardorem." There it is, "refrigerium," a cooler or 
refrigerator. So you prayed for Archbishop 
Hughes in the ceremony you performed over his 
remains, "Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, 
and let perpetual light shine upon him, and take 
him in honor of our masses and prayers into a re- 
frigerator." He did not deserve this at your hands. 
Cardinal, for you are now profiting by his labors. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY, 139 

He brought your cathedral almost to a state of 
completion and made your Church respected by 
all men in his day. And yet the most you do 
for him now is to offer up a prayer that he might 
get out of the fires of purgatory into a refrigera- 
tor. And every Roman Catholic who believes in 
your doctrines can hope for nothing better. 
After getting the souls out of purgatory the 
priests will keep them in the refrigerator as 
long as their friends have a dollar to pay for 
masses. Freezing must be as bad for the soul 
of a Catholic as burning, yet the people seem to 
prefer it. There is no accounting for taste. 

What if the soul of the deceased Archbishop 
be not in purgatory ? A recent case came before 
the courts in which a priest claimed a legacy of 
seven thousand dollars left him by a man for the 
purpose of bringing his soul out of purgatory. 
The judge asked the priest for a receipt, and the 
latter was about to give him one when his honor 
asked if the conditions of the legacy would be 
fulfilled. The priest replied in the affirmative. 
^' Well'' said the judge, " give me a receipt say- 
ing that for the sum of seven thousand dollars 
left by the deceased, you guarantee to bring his 
soul out of purgatory." The priest hesitated and 
said, "lean not do that; I will say masses for 
his soul, but cannot guarantee that thej^ will bring 
him out of purgatory ; God only knows when he 
will be let out " 



140 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

" Is there such a place as purgatory ? '• inquired 
the judge. 

'' There is," said the priest. 

"Where?" 

*'I do not know; somewhere in the other 
world." 

''But this money belongs to this world," said 
the judge, ''and before it is paid to you the 
court must know what will be done with it. 
The deceased left it for the purpose of bringing 
his soul out of purgatory. I ask you where pur- 
gatory is, and you tell me you do not know. Let 
me ask you, do you know whether the soul of 
the deceased is in purgatory ? " The priest was 
nonplussed. He wished he was out of the court, 
but he had to answer. " I presume his soul is in 
purgatory," said he. "Presumption or hearsay 
is not evidence," said the judge sharply. "If 
you do not know where purgatory is, or that the 
soul of the deceased is now there, you are not 
entitled to this legacy. I do not believe there is 
any such place as purgatory." Here a lawyer in 
court interrupted, and said there was such a 
place, and the priest who was testifying was now 
in it, as his honor could see by observing his piti- 
ful condition ; and sure enough, the priest's face 
was crimson with shame and mortification, as he 
sat with bowed head, unable to prove that there 
was such a place as purgatory, or that the soul 
of the deceased was there The money is still un- 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 141 

claimed in the court's possession, and there it 
will remain, I venture to say, until the end of the 
world. 

Neither can you prove to me. Cardinal, that the 
soul of your predecessor, Archbishop Hughes, is 
now in Purgatory. 

The arguments adduced by Roman Catholic 
theologians to sustain the doctrine of purgatory 
are of the ilimsiest character. The chief Script- 
ural proof is taken from Matt, xii., 32. Now, 
because the sin against the Holy Grhost cannot 
be forgiven, either in this world or the world to 
come, it does not by any means follow that there 
are some sins which will be forgiven in the next 
world. The meaning of the text evidently is that 
this sin can never be forgiven either in this world 
or in the next. 

Reliance is also placed on the passage in St. 
Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (iii., 11-15) : 
" He shall be saved, yet so as by fire," " and the 
fire shall try every man's work." This word 
''tire" is really what the people believe of pur- 
gatory. The text does not at all imply that this 
''fire of tribulation" is reserved for the other 
v/orld. Every faithful christian has to go through 
it here on earth. That is the essential condition 
of being a true christian. A man's work built 
by faith in Jesus Christ shall be made manifest, 
not built on him it shall perish ; yet, though the 
work come to naught, there is time for repent- 



142 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

ance while life lasts. That time does not come 
after death. God sees us all in sin, and he makes 
it known to us that our condition is as dangerous 
as that of a man in a burning house. His voice 
calls us to come out or we shall perish. Jesus, 
his own beloved Son, is the messenger he sends 
to warn us of our danger. One who is de- 
mented will not know whether he ought to go 
out or stay where he is, but one who has faith will 
hear the voice calling him and obey. 

In St. Peter's First Epistle (iii., 18-20), it is 
said that Christ went to the spirits in prison and 
preached to them. This is supposed to mean 
purgatory. But we are not told that any of 
those prisoners who were disobedient in the days 
of Noah were let cut. Your church teaches that 
all the saints who died before Christ were in this 
prison, and that he went there to tell them 
they were now free. But this is mere guess 
work, and the subject is too sacred to joke or 
guess about it. I knew a man in Chicago who, 
on All Souls' Day, when the priest was taking 
down the names of those who wished the mass to 
be offered for the souls of their departed friends, 
said that he had no relatives dead that he knew 
of. He held five dollars in his hand, and the 
priest not wishing to lose that sum, said that the 
mass could be offered for any dead person, 
whether for a relative or not. ''Among all the 
dead that I ever heard of," said the man, ''there 



TO CARDINAL MOCLOSKET. 143 

is not one that I care about more than I do about 
Eve." ^^Well," said the priest, '^you can get 
mass said for Eve." ''Can I?" inquired he. 
''Yes," said the priest. "Did anyone ever get 
a mass said for her soul ? " "Not that I am aware 
of." "Then it is time that some one should remem- 
ber her. She committed a big sin in her day, and 
though I suppose God forgave her, she had to 
suffer some temporal punishment after death. 
Take this five dollars, father, and divide it be- 
tween herself and Adam." 

The priest took the money, and, as I happen 
to know that he was an honest man, he said the 
mass. 

I quoted the theologian. Bishop Bouvier, who 
says that the fire of purgatory is like the fire 
of hell, and that in prayers for those who are 
in purgatory, Almighty God is petitioned to give 
them not merely a place of light and peace, but 
a refrigerator against the heat of this fire. No 
one has ever presumed to determine how long 
the punishment of purgatory lasts, and, therefore, 
it must be a matter of indifference whether the 
soul is burning or freezing for an indefinite period. 

From the cradle to the grave the Churcli of 
Rome imposes on her followers by the assertion 
of her authority to control and direct tliem ; and 
the services of the priests in ministering to tlie 
people mu8t be paid for in hard cash. There is 
no credit for baptisms, marriages, dispensations 



144 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

and masses. But the refinement of cruelty seemn 
to have been reached when the heaviest tax of 
all is placed upon the biers of the loved ones 
departed. More money comes to a priest from 
masses for the dead than from any other source. 
I know this by my own experience. When death 
enters a family there must be solemn requiem 
mass, which, costs from five to fifty dollars ac- 
cording to the number of priests engaged in it 
and the quality of the music. In manj'- of the 
churches the masses are announced from the 
altar on Sunday, so that the honor of having a 
requiem mass might be some solace to the afflict- 
ed friends of the deceased. The usual announce- 
ment is, ''Your prayers are requested for the re- 
pose of the soul of Teddy McAfferty, for whom 
a grand high requiem mass will be offered up to- 
morrow. All the friends of the deceased and all 
who desire to pray for the poor suffering souls in 
purgatory are invited. You know, my brethern, 
what holy Job says, have pity on me, have pity 
on me, at least you my friends, for the hand of 
the Lord has touched me. So the souls of your 
deceased friends are crying out to you to have 
mercy on them, for the hand of God is heavy on 
them. They cannot do anything for themselves 
now, suffering as they are in the fires of purga- 
tory, but you can help them by getting masses 
said for them. Is there any one in this congre- 
gation who does not feel the heart moved at the 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY.l 145 

contemplation of the sufferings of your loved ones 
departed. Most piteously are they crying out to 
you from the depths of Purgatory, have pity on 
lis, have pity on us. In a few years you wjll be 
numbered among the dead, your bodies laid be- 
side those whom you carried to the grave only a 
short time ago. Then you will wish that friends 
here on earth should have masses said for your 
souls. Do you think they will do so if you do 
not now set them the good example ? " 

In Italy the priests exhibit large paintings in 
which the souls in purgatory appear struggling 
fiercely to get out. A priest is saying mass, with 
another priest beside him holding a rope in his 
hand as he stoops down peering into the place of 
torture, and calling the names of those for whom 
the mass is being said, announcing to them that 
they are released. The poor ignorant people 
imagine that in this way souls are hauled up out 
of purgatory, and are thus cheated in the most 
shameful manner under the cloak of religion. 
The high requiem mass and incense and sprinkling 
of holy water over the remains of Archbishop 
Hughes, were not the less calculated to deceive 
the Roman Catholics by showing that not even 
such a man, great as he was in your churchy 
could be exempt from the fires of purgatory. 
Yours truly, 

James A. O'Connoi^. 



146 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 



LETTER XXIII. 

SlK : It may seem as if I was giving too miich 
attention to the doctrine of Purgatory, to the ex- 
clusion of more serious subjects. But you and I 
know how important an article of faith it is with 
every Roman Catholic, and what a mine of wealth 
it is to the priests. No Roman Catholic expects 
to go to heaven immediately after death. Even 
though he should repent and receive the last sac- 
raments of the priest, if he can get intw purgatory 
he will consider himself fortunate, for he knows 
that if he got his deserts, he might go farther and 
fare w^orse. " The Lord will not send me to hell, 
if I make a good confession, and be anointed be- 
fore I die," is the firm conviction of every Roman 
Catholic from the pope downwards. However 
sinful the life might be, there is still the hope of 
Heaven, away beyond purgatory. From this life 
to the other, therefore, means not from earth to 
heaven, or to the home of the blessed, but to the 
fire of purgatory, at least for a time. That this 
is not the teaching of Christ or his apostles, is 
evident from every part of the Scriptures where 
the promises of God are held out to those who 
serve Him. ^'TJierefore, being justified by faith, 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 147 

we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of 
God," says St. Paul. Tliere is neither peace nor 
joy in purgatorj^, nothing but suffering and burn- 
ing, "lilve the lire of hell." Every priest, how- 
ever, has the power of affording relief to the poor 
suffering souls, and he is ready to do it every day 
if he be well paid for his trouble. More money is 
received from masses for the dead than from any 
other source of revenue in the Roman Catholic 
Church. It is customary for many priests to put 
the money offerings for masses into one fund, and 
offer them indiscriminately at their own conve- 
nience. There are few Roman Catholics who do 
not sincerely repent when death is seen approach- 
ing. They have faith in God, and have great confi- 
dence in the mercy of Christ. The priest is called 
in to hear the last confession and give the last abso- 
lution. He represents Jesus Christ in the eyes of 
the dying Ro?nanist. He holds the Redeemer of 
all men in his hand as he gives the viaticum to 
the sufferer; he anoints him with oil, and offers 
the last prayer for the departing soul. That poor 
soul desires most earnestly, even with the last 
breath, to be united with its Creator through the 
atonement that Jesus Christ had made for it. 
There is no more siii or sorrow in this world, all 
that is passing away. The blessed Saviour is call- 
ing upon that soul to come to him : " Come unto 
me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 



148 FATIIKR O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

will give you rest." What an invitation this is t 
How often have I directed the thoughts of the dying 
as I sat by the bedside when attending sick calls, to 
Jesus on the cross — his blood poured out to wash 
away all stain of sin from the soul that believed in 
him, his arms extended to welcome and bless all 
who will come to him, and his prayer to God for all 
whohave sinned : ''Father, forgive them, for they 
knew not what they did." When the dying male- 
factor said, ' 'Lord remember me when thou comest 
into thy kingdom," Jesus said to him, "To-day 
thou shalt be with me in paradise." Had I not 
good reason to hold out words of encouragement 
and hope to the dying Roman Catholics who 
had faith in that Saviour? Yet I now look back 
with a pang of the heart at my own insufHcient, 
or rather, distorted faith at that time. Many a 
dying person said to me, "Do you think, when 
all is over that God will receive me into heaven ?" 
I used to answer, " yes, by trusting in the merits 
of Jesus Christ, and being sincerely sorry for 
all your past sins." "I am truly sorry, and I 
love my Saviour with all my heart ; why can I 
not go to him directly ?" I could only reply that 
the doctrine of the church was that the soul 
could not go to heaven until the justice of God 
should be satisfied in purgatory, until the "last 
farthing" should be paid. The only consolation 
I could offer was that by prayers, masses and 
indulgences, the term of punishment in purgatory 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 149 

could be lessened. The Lord in his great mercy 
has since taught me differently. If any one lias 
faith in Christ, with repentance and hearty sor- 
row for sin, there is every hope of an eternal 
union with God after this life is ended. The only 
question each one has to ask himself is, " Am I a 
christian — do I love my Saviour with all my heart?" 
If there be a certainity of this, "and the Spirit wit- 
nesseth with our spirit that we are the children of 
God," then w^e can say with St. Paul, " There is 
therefore no condemnation to them which are in 
Christ Jesus," no condemnation to punishment 
either in hell or in purgatory. We are persuaded 
that " God hath not appointed us unto wrath, but 
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we 
should live together with hhn." (1 Thess. v.) 
The only thing that can separate the soul from 
God is sin, and when sin is washed away by the 
blood of Christ, nothing can separate us from 
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. 

Your church. Cardinal, will never give up the 
doctrine of purgatory while it is such a source of 
revenue to the priesthood ; but the people will 
search tlie scriptures, and not finding such a place 
even so much as named therein, uiey will turn 
away from you and serve the Lord their God, as 
he directs them by his blessea word. 

Yours truly, 

James A. O'Conneh. 



150 .FATHER O'CONNOR^B LETTERS 



LETTER XXIV. 



Sir : St. Patrick' s day, March 17, is a great day 
for Ireland in America, and according to custom, 
the Roman Catholics march in procession with 
green banners, and bands of music playing 
" Garry owen" and ''Patrick's Day in the Morn- 
ing" to honor him. 

Of course the claim is put forth by your 
church that St. Patrick was a Roman Catholic. 
There lived in Dublin, some years ago, a learned 
clergyman. Rev. Tresham Gregg, who made a great 
stir by his writings, showing that St. Patrick was 
not a Roman Catholic. I have not his book by me 
at the moment, or I would give you some of the ar- 
guments he adduced in support of his position. But 
I have a work of great merit, ''The History of the 
Irish Primitive Church," by Rev. Daniel DeVinne. 
The author of this excellent book was an Irish 
Roman Catholic, but was converted in early man- 
hood and became a Methodist preacher. Until his 
death he was one of the oldest Methodist ministers 
in the Avorld. It was my privilege to receive a copy 
of his book from his own hands, with many blessings 
on my labors for the enlightenment of our Irish 
Catholic brethren. His life ^^'as full and well- 
rounded, and he departed rejoicing in the promises 
of his Saviour, thai he had a home prex)ared for 
iiim. 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 151 

Witliin the space of a letter I can only summar- 
ize the chief points in relation to St. Patrick. All 
writers agree that he was born towards the end of 
the fourth century, of Gallic parents. He was 
captured and taken to Ireland in one of the peri- 
odical excursions of the Irish to the shores of 
Gaul. It is said he was brought by Melcho, a 
chief tian who lived in the county Antrim. His 
occupation was the herding of sheep and cattle 
on the mountain-side. He was converted to God, 
as he tells us in his ''Confessions," which are 
accounted genuine by all historians. ''My con- 
stant business," he says, "was to feed the flock. 
There the Lord brought me to a sense of my un- 
belief, that I might remember my sins, and that I 
might be converted with all my heart unto the 
Lord my God, I was earnest in prayer. The love 
and fear of God more and more inflamed my heart. 
My faith increased and my soul was strengthened, 
so that I said a hundred prayers a day, and almost as 
many by night. I was not weary, for the Spirit of 
the Lord was warm in me." He fortunately made 
his escape, and was joyfully received by his parents. 
His father was a priest or deacon, and he placed the 
youth in a school near Tours. It is said that St. 
Martin, of Tours, was Patrick's uncle. Like St. 
Paul, Patrick had a vision of a young man who 
came to him with a letter, on whicli was written 
"Vox Ilibernaecum," (the Irish call). While 
holding it in his hand he heard a voice saying : ' 'We 



152 FATHER O'CONNOR'8 LETTERS 

entreat thee, holy youth, to come and walk among 
us." He obeyed the call, and carried the Gospel 
to the Irish. In his ''Confessions" there is not the 
slightest intimation that he was sent there by the 
Pope : ''God directing me, I obeyed no one in com- 
ing to Ireland." The people gladly listened to his 
preaching, and many conversions followed. His 
reaching was wholly evangelical, and he did not 
hesitate to denounce the horrid sacrifices of- 
fered by the Druidical priests. He established 
churches and schools in all parts of the island. In 
those churches there were none of the peculiarities 
of popery, neither masses nor prayers to saints ; 
and the Yu\gin Mary is not even mentioned in 
Patrick's writings. He says ''There is no other 
God except God the Father Almighty, who is with- 
out beginning, and from whom is every beginning, 
upholding all things ; and that we make known 
his Son Jesus Christ, who was before the begin- 
ning of the world, spiritually with the Father, 
through whom every thing visible and invisible was 
made ; and being made man and having died, was. 
received into heaven with the Father, and to him is 
given all power, above every name that is in heaven 
or on earth, or that is beneath, that every tongue 
may confess that Jesus is the Lord God, in whom 
we believe and for whose coming we are waiting; 
who will also make those who believe and are 
obedient, to become the sons of God the Father, 
and joint heirs with Christ, whom we confess 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 168 

and adore, one God, in the Trinity of the sacred 
name." Such is the creed of Patrick, and every 
Christian, but a Roman Catholic must believe 
more than that. The faith of Patrick is not suf- 
ficient. Evidently Patrick was not a Roman 
Cathotic. He died on March 17, 465. The fruits 
of his preaching and evangelical labors were seen 
in the churches established, and the number of 
missionaries that were sent out from them in the 
years after his death to carry the Gospel to the 
barbarians of central Europe. The Irish Church 
was among the purest of the churclies then in 
Christendom. The Popes of Rome had no author- 
ity over it in the days of St. Patrick, or for cen- 
turies afterwards. 

The learned Roman Catholic historian, O'Dris- 
coll, in his ''Views of Ireland," says: — "The 
Christian Church of that country, as founded 
by St. Patrick, existed for many ages free and 
unsliackled. For 700 years the cliurch main- 
tained its independence. It had no connection 
with England, and differed on points of import- 
ance with Rome. The first worlc of Henry 11. 
was to reduce the Church of Ireland into obedi- 
ence to the Roman Pontiff. Accordingly, he 
procured a council of Irish clergy to be held in 
Casliel in 1172 ; and the combined intrigues of 
Henry and the Pope prevailed This council put 
an end to the ancient Church of Ireland, and sub- 
mitted tQ the yoke of Rome. This ominous apos- 



154 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTEBB 

tacy has been followed by a series of calamities 
hardly to be equalled in the world. From the 
days of Patrick to the council of Cashel was a 
bright and glorious career for Ireland. From the 
sitting of this council to our times the lot of 
Ireland has been an unmixed evil, and all her 
history a tale of woe." Ireland became subject to 
England and Rome at the same time. An English- 
man became Pope, and took the name of Adrian 
IV. He knew how independent the Church of 
Ireland was, and he resolved to bring it under 
his authority. This he could do only by the aid 
of the king of England. Accordingly he gave 
Henry the following permission to subjugate the 
island. This is the famous bull of Adrian IV.: 

^'Adkiak, Bishop, Servant of the servants of 
God: To Ms most dear son in Christy the 
Illustrious King of the English^ Greeting 
and Apostolical henediction : 

*'The design of your greatness is praiseworthy 
and most useful to extend the glory of your name 
on earth, and to increase the reward of your eter- 
nal happiness in heaven ; for as becomes a Cath- 
olic prince, you intend to extend the limits of the 
Church, to announce the truth of the Christian 
religion to an ignorant and barbarous people, and 
to pluck up the seeds of vice from the fields of 
the Lord, while, to accomplish your designs more 
effectually, you implore the counsel and aid of 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 155 

tlie Apostolic see. The more exalted your views, 
and the greater your discretion in this matter, the 
more confident are onr hopes that, with the help 
of God, the result will be more favorable to you. 
Whatever has origin in ardent faith and love of 
religion, always has prosperous end and issue. 
Certainly it is beyond a doubt (and the nobility 
itself has recognized the truth of it), that Ireland, 
and all the islands that Christ, the Son of Justice, 
has shone upon, and which have embraced the 
doctrines of the Christian faith, belong of right to 
St. Peter and the holy Roman Church; we, 
therefore, the more willingly plant them with a 
faithful plantation, that a very rigorous account 
must be rendered of them. Thou hast communi- 
cated to us, our very dear son in Christ, that thou 
wouldst enter the island of Ireland, to subject 
its people to obedience of law, to eradicate the 
seeds of vice, and, also, to make every house pay 
the tribute of One Penny to the blessed Peter, 
and preserve the rights of the C hurch of that land 
whole and entire. Receiving your laudable and 
pious desire with the favor it merits, and grant- 
tng our kind consent to your petition, it is our 
wish and desire that, for the extension of the 
limits of the Church, the checking of the torrent 
of vice, the correction of morals, the sowing of 
the seeds of virtue, and the propagation of the 
religion oi' Cliiist, thou shouldst enter that island, 
and there execute what thou shalt think condu- 



156 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

cive to the honor of God and the salvation of that 
land ; and let the people of that land receive thee 
with honor, and venerate thee as their lord, sav- 
ing the rights of the Church, which must remain 
untouched and entire, and the annual payment 
of One Penny from each home to St. Peter and 
the holy Church of Rome. If thou wishest to carry 
into execution that thou hast conceived in thy 
mind, endeavor to win that people to good morals ; 
and both by thyself and those men whom thou 
hast proved duly qualified in faith, in words, and 
in life let the church of that country be adorned, 
let the religion of the faith of Clirist be planted 
and increased, and all that concerns the glory of 
God and the salvation of souls be so ordained by 
thee that thou mayest deserve to obtain from God 
an increase of thy everlasting reward, and a glo- 
rious name on earth in all ages. 

''Given at Rome, A. D. 1154." 

The bull of Pope Alexander III., who, twenty 
years afterwards, ratified the bull of Adrian, is 
of the same import. This document was ad- 
dressed to the same Henry II. of England, in 
1172, and runs thus : — 

'' Alexander Bishop, servant of the servants of 
God, to our well-beloved son in Christ, the illus- 
trious King of the English, health and apostolic 
benediction: Forasmuch as those grants of our pre- 
decessors which are known to have been made on 
reasonable grounds, are worthy to be confirmed 



TO CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 157 

by a permanent sanction. We, therefore, follow- 
ing in the footsteps of the late venerable Pope 
Adrian, and in expectation also of seeing the 
fruits of our earnest wishes on this head, ratify 
and confirm the permission of the said pope, 
granted you in reference to the dominion of the 
kingdom of Ireland — reserving to blessed Peter 
and the holy Roman Church the annual payment 
of One Penny for every house — to the end that 
the filthy practices of that land may be abolished, 
and the barbarous nation which is called by the 
Christian name, may, through your clemency, at- 
tain unto some decency of manners." 

How the custom of paying ''Peter's Pence," 
or taking up collections for the Pope, originated, 
few Irishmen have any knowledge of. We see 
in the above bulls, that it was a part of the 
compact of Rome with England, that every Irish 
family should x>ay the Pope a penny to be 
Romanized — civilized the Popes call it ; and the 
years from thar time to the present testify to the 
''civilization" that Ireland has received from her 
connection with Rome. 

From the above bulls it is evident that even the 
Popes did not consider Ireland a Roman Catholic 
country. They sold it to England for a penny for 
every house. If the Irish to-day complain of the 
union with England, they should remember that it 
was Roman Popes who handed their country over 
to the English ruler. The Fenians, Land Leaguers, 



158 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 

and other revolutionary societies, are making war 
on the government of England in our day, in 
order to effect a separation between the two coun- 
tries. But they should first direct their energies 
towards accomplishing a separation from that sys- 
tem of religion that is a caricature of that which 
Patrick established in Ireland. The Irish, either 
in their native land or in America, can never com- 
prehend what true liberty or freedom is, until 
their souls nre free from the debasing influence of 
popery. When they return to the religion that 
Patrick preached, founded on the Scriptures alone, 
and w^hicli caused their country to be known 
throughout Christendom as the ''Island of Saints," 
they may expect to be respected and trusted by 
the liberty-loving nations of the earth. But as 
long as they are papists, they cannot be re- 
ceived into the household of freedom any more 
than into the household of the faith by Christian 
nations. Let them renounce popery, with all its 
superstitions, and turn to the religion of the Bible 
that the Lord Jesus Christ established, and that 
the apostles and Patrick preached, and all the 
civilized nations of the world will rejoice. Con 
trast the Protestants of Ireland with the Roman 
Catholics, and it can readily be seen what a bene- 
ficial effect the teaching of God's word would have 
on that country. An Irish Protestant is not ac- 
counted an Irishman at all, neither is a converted 
Catholic. But the Roman Catholic is always held 



TO CAliDINAL McCLOBKET. 159 

up as the typical Irishman, poor ignorant, riot- 
ous, superstitious and priest-ridden. Such an 
Irishman will curse the Bible and blaspheme the 
name of the Most High; but if the Roman church 
is assailed, or if he should hear the words ''bad 
luck to the Pope" his anger is aroused, and he 
shows himself in his true colors. 

All the world can see that what Ireland needs 
to-day is to be free from the unchristian system 
of religion that Rome has imposed on her. Much 
surprise has been expressed that the great Refor- 
mation should have made so slight an advance in 
Ireland. Under the superstitious doctrines of 
Rome from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, 
the Irish became so ignorant and debased that it 
was not a reformation of Christianity they needed, 
but the planting of the Gospel seed anew by an 
apostle like Patrick. 

And what a sad history is that of Ireland for 
the last three hundred years. We see its out- 
growth in the present generation in the disorder 
that reigns throughout the unfortunate country. 
If the Roman Catholics had the Gospel of Christ 
preached to them instead of tlie doctrine of Rome, 
they would be truly the " Children of God," and 
by their piety and zeal for religion would be ex- 
emplars of holiness to all Christians. They have 
a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, 
for their church purposely keeps them in igno- 
rance of the truths of religion. My heart's desire 



160 FATHER O'cONNOR's LETTERS 

and prayer to God is, that they might be saved 
from the curse that tlie union with Rome has 
brought upon their country — that they might 
learn that salvation can be liad, without money 
and without price, from the blessed Son of God 
whom Patrick preached to them, and that they 
might see the truth, be converted, and live in 
Christ Jesus, and be received by him in the eternal 
mansions he has prepared for those who love l|im 
and serve him. '' I will receive you unto myself, 
that where I am, there ye may be also," he says. 
You and your priests tell our Irish brethren that 
unless they believe in the Pope and his Churchy 
the Lord will take back his words, that he will 
exclude them and send them to the bottomless 
pit. You place your signature on the Lord's 
promise and say it is of no effect unless your en- 
dorsement is accepted. Out upon your Roman 
additions that make the w^ord of God of no effect! 
May the good God in his mercy free the Irish 
people in their native land from the yoke of 
bondage that Rome has held them in, as he is 
doing to-day in America. 

Here common sense has obtained the mastery 
over superstition and ignorance, and as enlight- 
ened ideas have entered their minds they have 
learned to estimate the true value of the observ- 
ance of St. Patrick's day. It has long since 
ceased to be a religious festiv^al, for your Church 
is fast losing its hold on the people ; and this is 



TO CAEDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 161 

especially true of the descendants of tlie Irish in 
America. They have the advantage of education 
in American public scliools, the influence of en- 
lightened citizens around tliem, the stimulus of 
social advancement and distinction in all the 
the walks of life, and above all the knowledge 
that they can become free children of God, and 
fulfil the highest law of their being by serving 
him on earth by noble Christian lives and being 
united with liim in heaven when ''life's fitful 
fever is o'er." Their parents were born in pov- 
erty, cradled in ignorance, nurtured in supersti- 
tion, and confirmed in the vices peculiar to the 
lower nature of man, by your Church withholding 
from them the light of Christianity. Thank God 
for the open Bible and the public schools of 
America that are giving light and freedom even 
to the children of the slaves of Rome. 

I can remember fifteen years ago when the 
''Feast of St. Patrick" was observed as the 
greatest national holiday of the Irish race all 
over the world. Tlie Roman Catholic churches 
thronged with worshippers of the good Saint; 
traffic in the streets of all the large cities sus- 
pended for hours to allow the monster processions 
of Irishmen, led by German bands of music, to 
pass by; and th(i rum-shops dispensing the liery 
liquor that Irishmen love so well, till late into 
the night — all in honor of St. Patrick. Less than 
ten years since there were 20,000 Irishmen in the 



1C2 FATHER O'cONNOIi's LETTERS 

St. Patrick's day parade in this city, and in the 
year 1874 I witnessed a procession of 10,000 in 
Chicago. To-day I stood for lialf an hour in 
Union Square to observe the usual parade. Alas! 
how times have changed. Not more than 2,000 men 
shambled along in tlieir shabby regalia, and there 
was not a shadow of enthusiasm in the face of 
one of them. It was like a funeral cortege. I no- 
ticed in one of the banners the inscription: ''St. 
Patrick cares for the living and buries the dead," 
The crowd around me laughed heartily when a 
bystander remarked, ''Begorra, that's not true, 
for St. Patrick is so dead himself that he could 
not get up a decent procession in his honor to- 
day." And another said, ''Indeed, 'tis the truth 
you say, for I saw more persons and a grander 
turn-out at the funeral of Billy McGlory, the 
saloon-keeper, who died last week." While yet 
another volunteered the information that the rea- 
son the procession was so small was because St. 
Patrick was in trouble about the doings of the 
Land League. I turned to the speaker and asked 
liow was that? " Why you see, sir," he answered, 
^* since all the money we can earn now is going to 
the Land League, instead of the ' Holy Father ' 
and the Church, as it used to do some years ago, 
St. Patrick is so mad that he would not stir them 
up to-day," I confess this was new to me, and I 
longed for further information. As pleasantly as 
I could, I observed to the last speaker that surely 



TO CARDE^AL MCCLOSREY. 163 

that could hardly be, for St. Patrick was one of 
the greatest Irishmen that ever lived and must nat- 
urally take a deep interest in the aifairs of that 
country. ''He wasn't an Irishman at all," he 
blurted out, ''but a foreigner, and there's where 
we have been making fools of ourselves these last 
hundreds of years — marching like clowns at a 
show, getting drunk and breaking each other's 
heads in his honor, because we thought he was 
a genuine first-class Irishman." "How did you 
come to believe that he w^as an Irishman?" I 
asked. ''Why, "said he, "wern't weall taught 
in the old song that — 

* St. Patrick was a gentleman, 

And came from decent people, 
His father was the carpenter 

That built the church and steeple; 
No wonder that the Saint himself 

Should understand distilling, 
Since his mother kept a shebeen shop 

In the town of Enniskillen.' " 

I had quite forgotten this brief pedigree of St. 
Patrick until I was reminded of it by this incident, 
and as I walked away from the group of my be- 
loved countrymen, it struck me that the statement 
contained in the doggerel verses was as true as 
that generally received by the great mass of Irish- 
men regarding the person who introduced Christi- 
anity into Ireland in th(^ iitlh century. It is only 
within the past f(*w years they havi^ l(\*irn(Ml St. 
Patrick was not an Irisliman, and lat('r still the 



164 FATHER o'cONNOr's LETTERS 

Scriptural triitli that he was no more a Roman 
Catholic than was the blessed Virgin Mary. If I 
had made this statement to the group around me 
in Union Square, it would liave involved me in 
a tight with my rough countr3nnen, and as the 
odds were against me I held my peace. If the 
Irish element were taken out of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church in America, seven-eighths of its num- 
bers and all its enthusiastic devotion and slavish 
obedience to yon and your priests would disap- 
pear. The special emissar}^ whom the Pope sent 
to this countr}^ this year to *' convert" wealthy 
Protestants, Monsignor Capel, has said that out 
of 150,000 Roman Catholics in London not more 
than 10, 000 are English; they are all Irish. This 
is also true of Roman Catholics in America — they 
are nearly all Irish; and it is for them I write. 

In closing this letter let me commend to my 
Irish brethren the words of St. Paul: "But Ave 
exhort you, brethren, that ye study to be quiet, 
and to do your own business, and to work with 
your hands; that ye may walk honestly toward 
them that are without, and may have need of 
nothing." (1 Thes. iv., 11, 12.) 
Yours truly, 

James A. O'Connor, 



lO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 165 

LETTER XXV. 

Sir : I hope tlie preceding letter will be of 
some interest and service to Irishmen ''at home 
and abroad." At all events it will be a ready 
weapon in the hands of their descendants to op- 
pose one of the pretences of your Church, that 
the Popes of Rome were always well-disposed 
towards the people of Ireland. Here it is right 
to say that' the bulls of Adrian IV. and Alex- 
ander III. are anathematized by the Irish nation- 
alists and revolutionists, Roman Catholics though 
the}^ be, as heartily as the Popes tliemselves ever 
cursed the Protestant heretics Avho thought it 
better for rlieir souls' salvation to serve Gfod than 
man. Yet their ill-will against Adrian and Alex- 
ander does not deprive those characters of that 
quality of infallibility that distinguishes a Pope 
from the rest of mankind. If the present Pope 
be infallible, as his predecessor, Pius IX., de- 
clared himself to be, all former Popes and all 
future ones must be likewise infallible. 

The decree of the Vatican Council lu^ld in R-ome 
in 1870, is clear on this point. I quoti^ the con- 
cluding panigi-a])li of that decree: "Therefore, 
faithfully adluMing to the tradition received from 
the beginning of tlie Christian faith, for the glory 
of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the Roman 
■Catholic rc^ligion, and tin* salvation of (Mirislian 
I)eople, the Sacnnl ('ouncil approving, W(^ {riwh 



166 PATHEB 0'cX)KX0R'8 LETTERS 

and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed : 
that the Koman pontiff, when he speaks ' ex- 
cathedra/ that is, when, in discharge of the office 
of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue 
of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a 
doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by 
the universal Church, by the divine assistance 
promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of 
that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer 
willed that his Church should l>e endowed for 
defining doctrine regarding faith and morals; and 
that therefore such definitions of the Roman 
Pontiff are irrevocable of themselves, and not 
from the consent of the Church. 

''But if anyone presume to contradict this our 
definition : 

'•Let IIIM BE ACCURSED. 

•" Given at Rome in public session, solemnly 
held in the Vatican Basilica, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, on 
the eighteenth day of July, in the twenty fifth 
year of our Pontificate.** 

Elsewhere in this decree it is said, **This gift 
(infallibility ) was conferred by heaven upon Peter 
and his successoi-s in this see of Rome." Ac- 
cording to this definition every Pope of Rome 
was, is, and will be infallible, I will put it in 
syllogistic form: 

The Vatican Council nas declared that the 
Pope of Rome is infallible even without the con- 
sent of the Church ; 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 167 

Pius IX. was then Pope ; 

Therefore Pius IX. was infallible, 

Now as regards the present man in Rome : 

The Pope is infallible ; 

Leo XIII. is Pope ; 

Therefore Leo XIIL is infallible. 

Of course if one Pope is infallible as such, every 
man who has been Pope must be likewise infalli- 
ble. Hence the following syllogism is true: 

Every Pope is infallible ; 

Adrian IV. was Pope ; 

Therefore Adrian IV., who sold Ireland to the 
English King, whose successors have been ruling 
Ireland for more than seven hundred years, was 
infallible. 

And Alexander III., who confirmed the sale to 
Henry II. in 1172, was infallible, because he was 
Pope. 

Another illustration of this ''infallibility" of 
Popes in courting the favor of the powers of tlio 
earth, and one of some significance to all Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples, is the bull conferring on 
the rulers of England the title of "Defender 
of the Faith." This bull was sent by Pope 
Leo X. to Henry VIII. in the same year 
that Martin Luther Avas battling with both 
for the truth and purity of the Chiisliau 
religion. History tells us wl;at a charact(U' 
Henry VIII. was. yet W(^ see him blessed and 
almost deilied by tlu^ Popi^ of Home. Tlu^ ques- 



1G8 FATHER o'cONNOk's I.KTTEHS 

tion is pertinent, did Leo re-call the blessings 
lie sent the King, or did he exchange them for 
curses ? 

Henry became the greatest foe of the Roman 
Church a few years later, bnt he retained the 
title of Defender of the Faith, and it has been 
used by every ruler of England from his time. 
On all English coins you can observe the words, 
'•Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, Defender 
of the Faith." 

Let Roman Catholics draw their own conclu- 
sions from the perusal of this bull sent by Leo to 
Henry, and let them ask some priest of Rome to 
draw the line that separates infallibility from 
stultification. The bull of Leo to Henry, taken 
in connection with that of Adrian, will be of 
special interest to our Irish brethren, and hence 
1 have great pleasure in bringing it to light from 
the dusty pages of history: 

''Leo, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, 
to our very dear son in Christ, Henry, king of 
England, Defender of the Faith, health and 
Apostolic benediction. 

''By the will of the Most High, though our 
deserts are unworthy of it, we are governor of the 
universal Church, and to the end that the Catho- 
lic faith, without which none can he saved, may 
receive continual increase, we send abroad far and 
wide the thoughts of our heart; and that the 
things wliich have been set in order by the sound 
learning of Christ's faithful ones, specially those 
invested with royal rank, to j^ut down the efforts 



■ TO CARDINAL MCJLOSKEY. 169 

of such as essay to depress this faith, or, 
by wicked and lying inventions, to pervert and 
blacken it, may advance with continued increase, 
we devote the office and service of our ministry. 

''Furthermore, even as other Roman Pontiffs, 
our predecessors, have been used to bestow special 
favors on Catholic Princes, as times and circum- 
stances required, specially on such as in stormy 
times and amid the mad raging of perfidious 
schismatics and heretics, have not only stood firm 
in the faith, and in whole-hearted devotion to the 
holy Church of Rome, but who have also, like 
true sons of the Church, and valiant champions, 
both spiritually and temporall}^ opposed the mad 
rage of schismatics and heretics; in like manner, 
we too desire to exalt your Majesty with meet and 
immortal praises for your grand services towards 
us and this sacred seat, in which, by divine per- 
mission, we sit; and, further, to make you such 
grant as sliall bind you to keep away, with all 
watchfulness, wolves from the Lord's fiock, and 
to cut off by the civil sword rotten members, 
which defile the mystical body of Christ, and to 
firmly strengthen in faith the hearts of wavering 
believers. 

''Indeed, when lately our beloved son, John 
Clerk, your majesty's ambassador to us, in our 
consistory, in ])resence of our worshipful breth- 
ren, the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, 
and sundry otluu* ])r<.*lat(^s of th(^ Roman Curia, 
handed to us for our examination niid a]>])r()val, 
th(i book composed by your ALaji^sly out of a 
chaiity vvliich doetli its b(*st in (everything, and 
notiiing l)a(lly, ami intlamed with Z(^al lor the 
Catholi(^ faith, and warm devotion towards us and 
this holy See, as a lanu)us and salutary' antidote 



170 FATHER oViONNOR's LETTKRS 

against tlie errors of divers heretics, often con- 
demned by tliis holy See, and lately revived and 
renewed by Martin Luther; and when he further, 
in a speech of great clearness, gave us to know 
that, as your Majesty had refuted the notorious 
errors of the aforesaid Martin by true and un- 
answerable arguments from Holy Scripture and 
the authority of holy Fathers, so you were 
ready and disposed to follow up with arms, 
and the whole force of your kingdom, all 
who should presume to follow and uphold 
those errors; and when we had examined care- 
fully and closely the book, with its excellent doc- 
trine, sprinkled with the dew of heavenly^ grace — 
we gave hearty thanks to Almighty God, from 
whom Cometh every good and perfect gift, for 
giving you a spirit inclined to all good, and 
vouchsafing to pour upon you from above grace, 
enabling you to defend, by your writing, his holy 
faith against the reviver of such damnable errors. 
''Moreover, deeming it only right to bestow all 
praise and honor on such as have piously labored 
in Buch defence of the faith of Christ, and wishing 
not only to exalt and magnify with due praise, 
and to confirm and sanction by our authority 
3^our Majesty's writings against the aforesaid 
Luther — writings perfect in doctrine and in style 
— but also to decorate your Majesty with an 
honor and title, which shall tell all Christ's faith- 
ful people in our own times and all time to come 
how we have prized j'our Majesty's gift, espe- 
cially considering its timel}^ appeai'ance, we have 
resolved to confer on your Majesty the title of 
Defender of the Faith, even as we decorate 
you with such title by -these presents, and we 
hereby charge all Christ's faithful people to speak 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 171 

of your Majesty by this title, and in writing to 
you, to add to the style of King that of 'Defendei 
•of the Faith.' 

"And in truth, after carefully weighing and con- 
sidering the pre-eminence and dignity of this title, 
and also your unique services, we could not have 
devised a name either more worthy or more appro- 
priate. For whenever you hear or read it, you 
will be reminded of your own worth and your ex- 
cellent service; nor will you let this title puff 3^ou 
up or exalt you to pride, but with your wonted 
wisdom you will become yet more humble, and 
yet stronger and firmer in the faith of Christ and 
in your devotion to this holy See, the fountain of 
your exaltation. 

"Furthermore, 3^ou will rejoice in the Lord, the 
Giver of all good, to leave this as an everlasting 
memorial of your glory to your posterity, and lead 
them, in case they too desire to be graced with 
the like title, to desire to perform like deeds, 
to follow in the famous footsteps of your Maj- 
esty. 

"According to your admirable service to us 
and the See aforesaid, we bless you, with your 
wife and sons, and all who shall hei'eafter be born 
from you and tliem, in the name of him who 
hath given us power to bless, with bountiful and 
liberal hand; and we beseech the Most High who 
hath said, 'By me kings reign and princ^es rule, 
in whose hand are the lieaits of kings,' to con- 
firm you in your holy i-c^solution, and increase 
your d(n'otion, and by your nobh^ doings for the 
holy faith, make you so famous in tluM^yes of the 
world that nonc^ shall be abh^ to chalUMigt^ tln^ 
judgment which W(* liaA'c* (^x])ress(Hl of you in in- 
vesting you with this (Muinent title; and lastl}', 



172 FATHER o'cONNOR'S LETTERS 

when your mortal course is over, to make you a 
partaker of the everlasting glory. 

''Done at Home, in St. Peters, October lltli, in 
the year of our Lord, 1521, and ninth 
year of our Pontificate. 

''LeoX." 

An infallible Pope should have as much wis- 
dom at least as a weather prophet. Prom the 
Irish point of view the Popes I have referred to 
did not prove themselves more infallible in 
earthly affairs than the rest of mankind. What 
evidence have we that they were infallible in 
spiritual things? None at all. The Pope is as 
liable to commit a mistake as you or any other 
man, and the greatest mistake he or you can 
commit is to imagine that intelligent people can 
be always deceived by your false teaching. They 
will search the Scriptures, and by the grace of 
God find the way of salvation through the Lord 
Jesus Christ without you or the Pope. 
Very truly 3^ ours, 

James A. O'Coistnor. 



TO CARDINAL MCCL0SK3T. 173 

LETTER XXVI. 
Sir: In these letters I cannot too often recur 
to the scriptural way of salvation by faith in 
Christ, and the Roman Catholic way by depend- 
ence on the sacraments of the Church, which the 
priest alone can manufacture. The Lord Jesus 
Christ invites everyone to come to him for this 
salvation. Let each person consider his own way 
of life, and tell him all about it. To be sure, he 
knows it already, but it is necessary that each 
one of us should commune with him, if we desire 
that the Spirit of God should witness with our 
spirit that we are the cliildren of God. If any 
one is in sin, tell him of it. What will he say on 
hearing this confession? " Repent, repent ye, and 
turn to the way of the Lord." AVhat did he say 
of tlie publican who cried out from the depths of 
his soul, ''Lord be merciful to me a sinner"? 
'* He went away justified ;" he believed in God's 
power and love to forgive him when he repented. 
When this is done with sincerity of heart, then 
trust him that all else will be given. The light 
that sbineth from him into the soul will show liow 
a new life can be built up that will have no room 
for sin to enter. He is the builder of this new 
life, and his work will be made perfect, if the ma- 
terial be sound. True repentance, sorrow for the 
past sinful life, and a desii'e for the life that is 
united with Christ in faith, in hope, and in love, 



174 FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 

and then perfect trust in liis promises, that he 
will give rest to the soul — if one who really 
desires to he saved will do this, there need be no 
fear. The Lord Jesus will do his part. The love 
of God will take the place of the love of sin in the 
soul. This is the Gospel, the " good tidings" 
of salvation with which I wish to reach my 
Roman Catholic brethren. Christians have their 
Bibles to teach them, and only need to be told 
how to use them. Indeed, the Bible is a '' Letter 
from God" to every one who reads it, and it 
requires a prompt answer. Christians answer it 
by asking, " Lord, what shall we do?" And he 
teaches them, and they become his children and 
faithful followers. 

Roman Catholics have another way, altogether 
different from this. They are not taught or en- 
couraged to read the Bible; they only know that 
they must go to the priest to learn the way of sal- 
vation, and they must depend on him for the 
means of obtaining it. The Protestant looks to 
Christ alone as the Mediator and loving Redeemer, 
and depends on him, to the exclusion of all other 
means. " Neither is there salvation in any other: 
for there is none other name under Heaven given 
among men, whereby w^e must be saved." The 
New Testament tells us what he was, what he did 
and what he said. There is none other like him, 
never was, and never will be. It is through him 
and by him that the door of Heaven is opened to 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 175 

US. My Roman Catholic brethren depend on the 
priests to do this for them. God help them! If 
they really knew what the priests are they would 
not rely much on them to gain them admission to 
Heaven. Your Church teaches the people that 
it does not matter whether priests be good or bad 
men so long as they perform their duty ; the sac- 
raments of the Church are self- working {ex opere 
operato), the theologians say. But who knows 
that the priests perform their functions accord- 
ing to the stated formula ? 

Do all the priests in America pronounce the 
words of absolution over the penitent at confes- 
sion, or say the wx)rds of consecration at the mass 
on Sundays? No one knows. The people do 
not understand the Latin they mumble at these 
ceremonies. ''But all priests are honorable men, 
and gentlemen who would be incapable of decep- 
tion," my Roman Catholic friends who read this 
will say. Are they? I have known l.OOvO priest'^ in 
my time, hundreds of them intimately, and not a 
few bishops, and I must say that I did not find 
them all "honorable men." But reserving my 
experience of priests in general for another occa- 
sion, let me call your attention to some of the 
priests who have recently iigured in ])ublic in our 
neighboring city of Brooklyn, and if straws show 
how tiie wind blows, we can i'orm an estimate of 
the material of which ])riests are ma(h\ 

Last week, May 4th, 1883, Father Philip Kenny 



176 FATHER o'cONXOR's LETTERS 

came into court and sued against the estate of the 
late Father Robert Maguire, claiming $12,000 for 
masses that he had said for the soul of the de- I 
ceased. Father Maguire has been dead only two 
years, and it is a mystery liow Father Kenny 
could say $12,000 worth of masses in that period, 
unless, indeed, he charged §100 for every mass. 
The court refused to grant the amount asked for, 
and Father Kenny threatens that if he is not paid 
he will recall every one of those masses and leave 
poor Father Maguire' s soul in purgatory until 
it is burned to a cinder. The relatives of the de- 
ceased want the money, and will not give one 
cent of it for helping him out of purgatory. We 
learn that great scandal is the result, and that the 
members of Father Kenny's church are in danger 
of losing their faith. Purgatory is a rock on 
which the faith of many Roman Catholics will 
be shattered. How can it be otherwise ? The 
falsehood and deception practiced by means of 
this infamous traffic in souls will cause the peo- 
ple to turn away in disgust from the Church built 
upon it. 

I write as one vrho had been a priest of your 
Church until a few years since, and every Roman 
Catholic priest in America knows that what I say 
is sure to come to pass. If any confirmation be 
needed to strengthen my assertion, that the peo- 
ple are losing faith in your Popish doctrines, I 
refer you to the Catholic Remew of this city, one 



TO CAEDTNAL MCCLOSKET. 177 

of the leading papers of your Church, and spe- 
cially commended by you. Indeed so far as you 
have an official organ, the Review may be ac- 
counted one. In its issue for the week ending 
November 10th, 1884 it h^s the following lead- 
ing editorial article: 

''Great complaint is made that the duty of 
remembering the souls in j)urgatory by masses 
and prayers is so generally neglected or so im- 
perfectly performed. We used to believe in 
purgatory, theoretically, but, somehow, our faith 
now is comparatively dead. jSTo doubt this is, in 
a measure, owing to the fact that we live and 
move in an atmosphere of Protestant hostility to 
the Roman Catholic faith. It is extremely diffi- 
cult not to be influenced more or less by the 
prevalent views and feelings of the community in 
whicli we live. There is something in the very 
name, purgatory, that is obnoxious to our Prot- 
estant friends. They have been accustomed to 
look upon the doctrine of purgatory as not only 
superstitious, but also as connected with a system 
of abuses which are considered its direct and 
leo:itimate result. The consequence is that 
Roman Catholics too often feel ashamed to ac- 
knowledge that they believe in purgatory at all, 
or it they are, at any time, called upon to profess 
their faith in it, they do so with bated breath and 
shame-faced reluctance. Theoretically we be- 
lieve that our friends who have gone before us to 
the world of spirits may be suffering the ])urga- 
torial ])r )cess nec^essary to flt them for tlu^ beatitic 
vision of God, and that they maybe beneliltul by 
our prayers and sutterings ; but do we realize it } 
Do we brin;^ it home to our hearts and to our 



178 FATHER O'CONNOU'S LETTERS 

every day experience i Some of us, no doubt, 
say a ' Hail Mary ' for the sufferino- souls in 
purgatory, and perhaps end some of our otlier 
prayers with the common ejaculation, ^And may 
the souls of the faithful departed, through the 
mercy of God, rest in peace I' Tluit certainly is 
better than nothing ; but it is not enough. 
What we want is to have purgatory 'opened' 
so that we can look into it, and not merely take 
a hasty glance, as so many are now doing and 
then passing it by." 

As one reads this, Cardinal, it may seem as if 
your editor meant it for a joke, but he is in down- 
right earnest. I have given his article so much 
space in order that Protestants as well as Roman 
Catholics might know in what a pitiful condition 
the souls in purgatory are, without anyone at all 
praying for them now, as was the custom formerly. 
If this state of things continues, the poor souls 
will have to begin to pray for themselves. Sadly 
will they realize that they would never have got 
into purgatory if they had done their own pray- 
ing while in the flesh. But alas ! it is now too 
late. The only consolation they can get from 
this editor is the exhortation in his concluding 
paragraph: 

''Let us for one month in the year, at least, be 
willing to sacrifice a portion of the time devoted 
to our favorite newspaper that we may employ 
it in the delightful work of praying for the souls ' 
in purgatory." 

Thus by the testimony of your own faithful fol- 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 179 

lowers we see that purgatory is dead and all but 
forgotten. Soon all the other cherished institu- 
tions of your Church will follow the fate of 
purgatory, and be laughed out of the existence 
they now have in the imaginations of the people. 
Can intelligent people with the Word of God in 
their hands believe that the only way to heaven 
lies through the Roman door ? We read in the 
Gospel of St. John, iiL, 16, 17: ''For God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent 
not his Son into the world to condemn the world; 
but that the world through him might be saved." 
Do you imagine. Cardinal, that as the people 
whom j^our Church now controls become capable 
of thinking on these religious subjects for them- 
selves, thej^ will believe you or any man rather 
than God ? They are learning, and it is time they 
should, that the promises of God are true for each 
one of them, and that your purgatory, masses and 
confessions are of no use to them here or here- 
after. My prayer is tliat they might turn to the 
great High Priest who offered himself as a sacri- 
fice for the sins of the world, " Avhose blood 
cleanseth from all sin," and who will receive 
into heaven whosoever will sincerely reperit and 
believe in him. 

Yours very truly, 

Jamks a. O'Connor. 



180 FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 



LETTER XXVII. 

New York, January 12th, 1884. 

Sir: As I write this concluding letter to the 
Fourth Edition of this collection you are sitting 
on your throne in the cathedral on Fifth Avenue 
surrounded by a dozen Roman Catholic bishops 
and three hundred priests, in presence of an 
audience of four thousand persons, who have 
assembled to do you reverence on this occasion, 
the golden jubilee of your ordination to the Ro- 
man priesthood. 

A sketch of your life will be of interest to the 
readers of this volume, for you are the first 
American Cardinal, and your career as the chief 
representative of the Pope in this country has 
been one of marked success. 

Your parents were poor Irish folks who came 
to this country, like hundreds of thousands of 
their countrymen, to better their condition. You 
were born in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1810, and, so 
far as known, your condition in early life was in 
nowise diiferent from that of the average Roman 
Catholic boy who is to be seen on the streets of 
all our cities. Whether your father kept a rum- 
shop, like Archbishop Corrigan's worthy sire, I 
know not. Archbishop Corrigan is now your 
associate, and will be your successor, and perhaps 
a greater power in the Roman Church than you 



I 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 181 

have been. He has had the advantage of you in 
the fact that his father made much money by 
selling "Jersey liglitning," as the vile whisky 
he dispensed for fifty years in Newark, N.J., was 
called, and thus was enabled to send his son to 
Kome ''to make a priest of him." That is the 
crowning joy of Roman Catholic saloond^eepers. 
If they can have a son a priest or a daughter a nun 
they verily believe the Lord will wink at their 
own lives spent in ministering to the damnation 
of the souls and bodies of their fellow creatures. 
Old Corrigan had this ambition for his son, 
though he did not live to see him an Archbishop; 
for, it is said, he dropped dead in his miserable 
rum-hole in Newark while measuring out a drink 
of whisky to a poor Irishwoman. Many a mass 
the son will have to offer up to bring his father's 
soul out of purgatory, if there be sucli a place, 
and if the unfoi'tunate man did not go farther and 
fare worse. 

You were ordained a priest in 1834, and served 
various churches in this city until you were 
appointed coadjutor to tlie late Archbishop 
Hughes in 1844. In 1847 you became Bisliop 
of Albany, and in 1864, on the decease of Arch- 
bishop Hughes, you succeeded him as Archbishop 
of New York. Since then you liave lived in this 
city, enei-getically woi-king to build u]) your 
Church by th(^ acquisition of valuabk^ })roi)(Mty 
and the en.^ctiou of churches, convents and mon- 



182 FATHER o'cONNOR'S LETTERS 

asteries. You were promoted to the Cardinalate 
in 187i), and tlius became a *' Prince of the 
Church." Your official designation is, ''His 
Eminence, Cardinal John McCloskey, Arch- 
bishop of Xew York.- ' The Pope has rewarded 
you with no stinted hand in the bestowal of titles 
and honors, and you have proved yourself his 
faithful servant. Not the least of your labors has 
been the collection of five million dollars for him 
and his predecessors, Avhich you sent to Rome 
during the last iifty years. Ail this was gathered 
in small sums from the scanty wages of the poor 
Irish Romanists, who believed they could not go 
to heaven unless they paid you and the Pope for 
the grace of God and the merits of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, which they imagined could come only 
through your hands. 

But what have you done for your country and 
your God during all those years? In all the ful- 
some eulogy addressed to you by bishops, priests 
and laymen on this occasion there is no commend- 
ation of your life and duty as a citizen or a 
Christian. Whatever you have done has been 
for the material growth and glorj^ of the " holy 
Church of Rome." Your Vicar General, Mon- 
signor Quinn, in the address of the clergy sounds 
your praises in the following remarkable state- 
ment: 

'' It can be but a matter of consolation to j^our 
Eminence to recall the great and singular progress 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 183 

of the holy Roman Church, which, during this 
period, your eyes have witnessed in tliis country. 
No more remarkable and rapid extension of the 
Roman Catholic faith has been recorded in any 
region of the world since the apostolic age. 

'' Fifty years ago there were in this city but 
six churches; now there are sixty. There were 
but twenty priests in the diocese; now there are 
three hundred and eighty. At that time there 
were in the whole United States only nine bishops; 
now there are sixty-three. Then there Avas but one 
Archbishop; now there are fifteen, one of whom 
has been elevated to the senate of the universal 
Church. 

''There is, perhaps, no city in the whole world 
more Roman Catholic, when measured by the 
standard of the number of its Easter communions, 
than the metropolis over which j^ou preside as 
Archbishop. 

*'It must be a matter of personal congratula- 
tion, in which your Eminence cannot fail to be 
partaker witli us, to know that your elevation to 
the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal dignity and to 
the higher dignity of the Cardinalate, was due 
to the free choice of the Pope, the supreme pastor 
of God's holy Cliurch. 

'' Our prayer is that you may be spannl to see 
th(^ b(^giii!iiiig, at U^ast, of that triuini)li forest^en 
by the late? pontiff Pius IX., of lu)ly memory, and 
so earnestly sought by his holiness Leo XIII., 



184 FATHER o'CONNOK's LETTERS 

now happily reigning — the triumph of the Holy 
Church over the whole earth/ ' 

The address from the laity further illustrates 
the material gi-owth and development of the Ro- 
man Church during the past fift}^ years: 

''Fifty years, your Eminence, a priest of the 
liol}^ Roman Catholic Church — this is truly a 
crowning anniversary, a golden jubilee. The coad- 
jutor Archbishop, fresh from the inspiring pres- 
ence of the 'Holy Father' — prelates from all the 
land — the large assemblage of surpliced priests 
and the laity in crowded mass fillino; the sacred 
and spacious edifice, brought to its present state 
of completeness b}^ your unceasing efforts and 
untiring energy, all meet and are gathered to- 
gether here to-day to offer up praises and thanks- 
giving for the long j)eriod vouchsafed you in 
the ministry, to pra}^ its extension during many 
years to come — to manifest their gratitude for 
your labors in behalf of the holy Church. 

" Fifty years ago the city which is now the 
third in magnitude in the Union, was the rising 
village, set upon a hill, in which your Eminence 
first breathed the vital air, while her greater and 
elder sister lying on the other sliore of the river 
was proud and boastful of a population of two 
hundred and liftj^ thousand souls. To day the 
two just now united by hooks and cables of steel 
dominate the nation in w^ealth andintluence. and in 
population outnumber all the other great cities of 



V 



TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 185 

our country on the two oceans, on the mighty river 
and gulf combined. What development, what 
growth, what expansion, since the day your Em- 
inence entered upon the sacred duties of the 
priesthood ! Side by side with this unexampled 
advance have increased also the cause and mem- 
bership of the Roman Catholic community. 

''When a priest first visited this island of New- 
York — even then a busy mart — the number of the 
laity was only two. Fifty years ago the churches 
were less than six, the clergy were few and there 
was one religious institution; colleges were not 
and Roman Catholic schools were well nigh un- 
known. Now churches and chapels are counted 
by scores — priests by the hundred and the laity 
by hundreds of thousands. Roman Catholic 
institutions of every kind and degree have arisen 
everywhere throughout the city. Thus the devel- 
opment of all that could confer power and influ- 
ence and efiiciency has more than kept pace with 
the material growth of the metropolis. Recog- 
nizing these impressive facts. Pope Pius IX., of 
blessed memory, placed the Church here on a 
plane with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the 
most favored parts of Christendom and accorded 
it a representation in the Sacred College. The 
selection of x^our EmiiKMKu^ for the (\\al((Ml honor 
was but a fitting tributes to your life-long (hnotioii 
to the interests of the Church ainl lilhul with joy 
erery Roman Catiiolic iieart. For th(*s(> accmn:i- 



18G FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 

lated blessings of churches, clergy, colleges and 
other institutions of learning the laity feel them- 
selves in the iirst and highest degree indebted to 
two illustrious chieftains of the Church — your 
immediate predecessor, the first Archbishop of 
New York, and your Eminence. How thor- 
oughly, how profoundly and how vividly they 
appreciate this fact is attested by their generous 
response to every appeal, by their pious remem- 
brance of the deceased prelate manifested on each 
occurring occasion, and by their tender and affec- 
tionate regard for yourself. In commemoration 
of this joyful event, on behalf of the laity, I tender 
your Eminence their warmest congratulations, 
and, bowing down in profound reverence, I lay 
at your feet this tribute of their homage and the 
assurance of their loyal attachment and devotion 
to your person." 

Your reply to these addresses was characterized 
by your Avonted modesty. You said you had 
sought no other glory than that of '' the Church," 
and that the secret of j^our success was devotion 
to the See of Rome and the contidence and co- 
operation of your faithful Irish followers. 

The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in 
this city and in the United States is a startling 
fact. A few years ago the late Rev. Marinus 
Willett, an honored Presbyterian clergyman, 
whose grandfatlier, General Willett, was Wash- 
ington's most trusted aid-de-camp, told me that 



TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 187 

lie remembered when St. Peter's Roman Catholic 
Church in Barclay Street was opened for service, 
and as his father' s house was directly opposite he 
noticed that the great multitude which flocked 
into the building was composed mainly of the 
working classes, laborers and servants. He 
thought then that the Roman Catholic Church 
was destined to do good among such a class, as 
they were all illiterate and only half- civilized. 
But he did not anticipate the numerical growth 
of those ''illiterate and half-civilized" Irish in 
the city of his birth; and it was with ever -increas- 
ing astonishment he and other Americans sa\r 
them each year developing those qualities that 
have made them a power in the whole country 
and a menace to its free institutions. Mr. Willett 
saw the home of his grandfather purchased for 
St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church, and a con- 
siderable portion of the large estate left by him 
used in paying taxes to support the Roman 
Catholic institutions in the city; he saw the ad- 
ministration of tlie municipal affairs of New 
York wholly in tlie hands of Roman Catholics; 
he saw the Bible turned out of the public schools; 
he saw tlu^ marvellous growth that has been pic- 
tured in such glowing colors in the addresses 
presented to you at your golden Jubilee; and he 
felt chagrined and mortiiied that tlu^ gn^at mass 
of the American ])e()pl(^ were so indiflenMit to the 
danger that hiy at their doors IVoni this foreign 



188 FATHER O'Connor's letters 

power. Others have felt like him, though little 
has been done to counteract the evil tendencies 
of the Romish system. Political agitation 
against it has ceased, as it is a principle of liberty 
that the Irishman ought to be permitted to wor- 
ship his Popish idols with as much freedom as is 
conceded to the pagans from other countries who 
come to America. 

The true remedy for the evils that threaten 
America from the great power of the Roman 
Catholic Church is in the conversion of the peo- 
ple. We who have been Roman Catholics and 
priests of that Church are doing our part in this 
direction. (This is not the place to say with 
w^hat success, though we can give thanks to God 
that our labors have not been in vain, for many 
have accepted the Bible way of salvation and our 
numbers are continuall}^ increasing. I must refer 
you to the pages of our monthly magazine, The 
Converted Catholic, for details regarding this 
Reformed Catholic movement.) And many Prot- 
estants are taking the same view of the situation. 
The Rev. Dr. S. Van Dyke in his valuable work, 
'' Popery the Foe of the Church, and of the Re- 
public," says, ''There are man)^ and cogent rea- 
sons why Protestants should put forth their most 
strenuous efforts to defeat the wily machinations 
of their arch-enemy, and to give the masses the 
only true antidote to Popery, the simple, unadul- 
terated Gospel. This call to redoubled exertion is 



TO CAEDINAL MCCLOSK2Y. 189 

found not simply in the fact that the Papacy is 
by necessity hostile to the true Church and to 
Republicanism, but especially in its recent energy 
and growth. Earnest effort and unwearied vigi- 
lance are duties we owe alike to ourselves and to 
God. If activity is essential to healthful piety; 
if the truth as taught by Christ is in its very 
nature aggressive; if the true Church of God can 
fulfil its mission in the world only by conscien- 
tiously endeavoring to obey the commands of its 
ascended Lord ; if, as every well instructed Prot- 
estant firmly believes, Popery is the uncomprom- 
ising enemy of genuine Christianity, and of 
Republican forms of government, then most as- 
suredly Protestants should exert themselves to 
counteract the unparalleled efforts now made in 
this New World to extend Rome's baneful system 
of spiritual despotism over a country dedicated 
to Protestantism and civil liberty," 

The Roman Catholic Directory for this year 
(1884) gives the statistics of your Church in the 
United States, Canada, England, Ireland and 
Scotland. Taken in connection with its day of 
small things and weak beginning in the United 
States, as outlined in the preceding addresses, a 
summary of the present strength of the Roman 
Catholic Church will be of interest: 

Leo Xril. (Vincent Joachim Pecci), the present 
Pope, claims to be the two hundred and fifty- 
eighth successor of St. Peter, and is nn'ogiiiziHl by 



190 FATHER O'cONNOr's LETTERS 

all Roman Catholics as the head of their Churclt 
Under his jurisdiction are : 

59 Cardinals, including yourself. 

12 Patriarchs of the Latin and Oriental Rite. 

176 Archbishops. 

716 Bishops. 

In the United States there are: 

1 Cardinal. 

15 Archbishops. 

63 Bishops. 

6,833 Priests. 

And a Roman Catholic population of 6,482,396. 
Tn this latter estimate are included all the mem- 
bers of each family, and even the children of what 
are called ''mixed marriages/' that is, where 
only one of the parents is a Roman Catholic. 

A well organized corps of monks and friars, 
and 30.000 nuns, or '' sisters,*' as they are called, 
the best disciplined army in all the world, must 
be added to the working force of the Church. 

Here is a great foreign power in America, gov- 
erned from Rome, that is hostile to true religion, 
the religion of the Bible, and to the institutions 
of the country that it cannot control. What are 
the safeguards against it ( The best is, to en- 
lighten the people, who, when they are converted, 
will make good citizens and good Christians. 
Adieu, Cardinal I May you be converted is the 
prayer of Yours very truly, 

James A. O'Coxxor. 



^;he irf^onrerteil ^atholk^ 



NOVEMBER, 188S. 



PEOSPECTUS. 



The title-page of this publication indicates its pur- 
pose. Its aim is the conversion of Eoman Catholics. 
There are many forces at work at the present day 
that contribute to their enlightenment and ad- 
vancement. The free public institutions of tlie 
country, contact with the American x)eople, the posi- 
tive and aggressive i)reaching in Christian x^ulpits, 
the general diffusion of knowledge that compels men 
to think for themselves, — these and other like agen- 
*cies are doing a work that is bearing abundant fruit. 
The "Catholic World" recently said that if all the 
children of the Irish and German Catholic immi 
grants continued faithful followers of Rome, there 
would be now in America 20,000,000 Eoman Catho- 
lics, instead of 6,000,000. It frankly avowed that a 
great number of them had been led into Protestant 
churches. For once, at least, this Romish organ 
spoke tlie truth. A glance at the list of members 
of any Protestant Church in America will show how 
many of them bear unmistakable evidence of their 
Eoman Catholic origin. At this i)resent writing, 
Oct. 2, 1883, a cable despatch from Ireland says that 
at a meeting in Galway, the Eoman Catholic J>ishoi) 
delivered a speech in whicli he dwelt at great length 
upon the fact that millions of Eoman Catholics have 
been lost to the Catholic faith in America. The 
present generation has witnessed a falling away 



11 TKOSPECTUS. 

from the Eoman Catholic Church that can be 
paralleled only by the Keformatiou of the six- 
teenth century. The temporal power of the 
Pope utterly destroyed, all Germauy arrayed 
against Popery, France freed from Jesuitism, the 
word of God having free course in Italy, Spain, 
Mexico, and other countries where the people were 
enslaved and blinded by superstition. In Eome 
itself, the very cit^^ of the Popes, the Gospel is 
l)reached and taught by a score of missionaries. 
Here at home i^riests and people are leaving in vast 
numbers, and still there are more to follow. 

As a positive and timely co-worker in this movement 
the CoxYERTED CATHOLIC comes before the public.^ 
It shall be the voice, not only of the Eeformed Catho- 
lic movement, but of every evangelical work that has 
for its object the enlightenment and conversion of 
those whom Eome has oppressed and deceived. 
Writers of signal ability, and distinguished ministers 
of various denominations, who were once Eoman 
Catholics, have promised to contribute articles on 
their own experience of that delusive system of re- 
ligion, and the best means to be adopted for the con- 
version of Eoman Catholics. With the aid of such 
eminent preachers and writers the Converted 
Catholic enters upon its career of usefulness 
nnder the most favorable auspices. Trusting 
in the Divine guidance for wisdom to direct it, and 
relying on the patronage of God's people every- 
where to support it, it asks the good wishes of all 
for its success. 6 8 3 '^ 



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